Digimon Scammers: Empire
by Rogue2k7
Summary: Eddy gets more than he bargained for when he receives a digimon partner and finds himself leading a team to go against the Digimon Emperor: his own brother. In fact, certain secrets come forth while doing so.
1. Eddy's Partner

Chapter 1: Eddy's Partner. The Birth of Commandramon

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy.

* * *

Winter sucks, plain and simple. First there's the snow. Not only is it a pain to drive in or to walk in, but it also gets really old after a couple of days. For Eddy, looking out his window, that is merely his first problem with winter. His real gripe is that he has to be in school the entire season. Nothing seems to be going on outside of school either, despite the new friendship with Kevin and his old friends Ed and Double D. Then there's how late winter seems to be this year: it's already the middle of March. Someday it's going to be over, but not now.

"Edward McGee!" Eddy was staring out the window when his teacher slapped her ruler on his desk, startling him.

"Huh!"

"What is x – 7 = 10?"

Eddy was completely detached from the classroom that day. "What are you talking about?"  
The teacher shook her head. "You weren't paying attention, were you? The lesson for today is an introduction to basic algebra. Solve for x."

Eddy just stared at her. True she was a teacher, but she did have a nice figure and the business attire added to that. "Um, I don't know. 37?"

The teacher shook her head. "Honestly Eddy, I have no idea how you passed sixth grade. What is the sign for seven?"

In reality, the reason he passed sixth grade was due to one of his friends passing on his report card to his parents and them attempting to work with him. "Uh, minus?"

"Very good. So, what do you do to make the equation 'x = something?"

"I don't know, subtract seven from ten?"

"Ugh. Since it's got a minus sign, you switch it to the opposite sign, the plus sign and add it to ten. Now, what does x equal?"

Eddy thought for a second. "Seventeen?"

"Good, you got it right. Now class, you all know what the lesson consists of and how to do it from the examples I just gave." The teacher started walking toward the front of the room. "The homework is on the board. Eddy, for not paying attention, I'm going to need to see you after class."  
All he could think was _Oh brother_.

* * *

Later on, when he was finally getting his stuff together to leave the classroom he found a small toy device inside his desk that wasn't there before. It was black with a yellow square around its square screen. It also has several yellow buttons on each side of the screen and a docking port of some sort on the top. "Okay, so somebody left some stupid toy in my desk, I wonder who," Eddy muttered to himself.

The teacher wanted him out of the classroom though, since it was her one period where she didn't have a class and she wasn't about ready to let a kid stay in there while she graded papers. "Eddy, you're late for your next class, so can you please go already. I already gave you your late pass, so don't push it."

"Okay, okay, I got it." He walked out of the classroom looking at the toy in his hands. He pressed a button on its side and it turned on, cheesy looking black and white LCD screen and everything. What astounded Eddy though was that the only thing on the screen was an egg. "What the-?" Suddenly the egg hatched, revealing a bomb with pointed cat ears, three eyes and a fuse for a tale. Eddy now looked concerned like the device was gonna blow up or something. Then the thing beeped, an indicator indicating what button to press. "Oh, great, it's one of those stupid Tomagachi things, isn't it?" Eddy pressed the button anyway.

For some reason, Eddy felt like playing around with the thing after that, even during his following class; the teacher didn't seem to notice, then again, he was in the back of the room. All it was was a boring English lesson anyway, something about conjugation or something. Eddy's thoughts were that it's something that they have to take every year so it was pointless for him to be there. Eddy put the device in his pocket and went to lunch at the end of the class. There he met with some of his friends, including Double D, Ed, Kevin and a black guy named Chaun who hung out with them too. He was originally one of Kevin's friends and Eddy didn't really get to know him until Kevin started letting the Eds hang out with him. Chaun was actually the only one at the table not from the cul-de-sac except for this girl that Nazz was talking to.

"So, how do you like Fish Filet Friday?" Chaun asked, about ready to fall asleep. Then again, both he and Kevin were about ready to fall asleep. Kevin was struggling to keep his head from heading face first into the greasy fried fish.

"It's so cool, since it has mashed potatoes and gravy on the side," Ed said, his usual gravy obsessed self.

"Now, in my opinion, it is far too greasy and fattening. Weren't they trying to improve the menu in response to the nationwide obesity epidemic?" Edd inquired.

"Yeah, but due to the economy, the school can't afford it," Kevin responded. His eyes were all bloodshot.

"Kevin, are you alright?"

"Yeah."  
"Here's the thing, man, me and Kevin just stayed up too late last night playing StarCraft," Chaun said. Surprisingly enough, Kevin didn't chastise him for making him look nerdy.

"Now, honestly, what's so great about this computer game that you'd sacrifice your sleep and grades over it?" Edd asked.

"It's fun," Kevin replied. "Need any other reason?"  
Then Eddy's device beeped. "What the-?" Eddy pulled it out but didn't show it to anybody else.

"Eddy! You do realize that if anyone finds that you have a cell phone, it will be confiscated," Edd warned.

"Eddy's got a girlfriend," Ed said, everyone ignoring him.

"This ain't a phone, sockhead!" That was when Eddy had the courage to show the toy he found. "Some sort of Tomagatchi, I think. Found it at the end of math class."

Kevin started to laugh a little bit. "Dude, you mean you actually found something like that lying around. Man, Tomagatchis are so ten years ago!"

"Well, it's not mine."

"If that's the case then, we must return it to its rightful owner," Edd said, "I'm sure they must be looking for it right now."

"Yeah, and get it confiscated in the mean time," Chaun warned. "Can I see it for a sec?"

"Sure, here you go."

Eddy handed the device over to the black kid, who eyed it. "Wow, what do you know? I haven't seen one of these in years, man. This here is a Digimon V-Pet. They were invented in Japan in the late 1990s as a boy's version of Tomagachi that can fight."

"Wow, and here I thought Digimon was just a rip-off of Pokémon that my brother watched."

"Are you kidding me? That show is way different from Pokémon that the only things that resemble it are that there are monsters and that the name's kind of similar. Other than that, well, Digimon's cooler in my opinion."

"Okay, whatever. My bro had the cards too." This caused Kevin and Chaun to look at him.

"You're kidding me," Kevin said.

"Nope, I found them in his dresser."

"Tight! So, can you, like, show us after school?" Chaun inquired.

"Alright. There will be a fee of course."

* * *

In Eddy's brother's museum of a bedroom that was practically unchanged since the guy moved out, Eddy was rummaging through the dresser that was in the guy's closet to the right of the door upon walking in. "Man, your brother's room is way trippy! Is it true he once built a car in here?" Chaun asked.

"Uh, yeah. I ran it through the wall last summer when trying to make my grand escape."

"After a scam gone wrong, no doubt."

"So, where are the cards?" Kevin asked, changing the subject.

"Ok, got em!" Eddy pulled out the box full of cards. "The one in the rubber band is my bro's deck, which he would kill me if I gave it away, so don't touch it."

"Man, this is so cool." Then Kevin picked up a card and was disappointed. "What gives! It's in Japanese!"  
"Hey, I'm learning Japanese!" Chaun declared.

"I don't care. Some of these are in English, hmm…"  
"And their still green backed Digimon cards, awesome," Chaun mused. "I wonder if these are legal. You mind if I take a couple?"  
"Sure go right ahead. Just give me 25 cents a card," Eddy said as Chaun grabbed some cards and pulled out some bills. Then he noticed a small device with all the cards. "What the-?"

"Wow, it's an old card reader. I haven't seen one of these in ages either," Chaun stated. Eddy picked it up and looked at it. It turns out that it had a docking port for Eddy's pet. Upon seeing the docking port, Eddy pulled the thing out to see that it had changed form to some sort of triangular missile. Oh, and it needed to be cleaned up after, something that Eddy wasn't amused about.

* * *

After his friends left, Eddy just sat on his bed in his yellow boxers and looked at the cards inside the box, looking at each of them. Then he found a card that was unlike any of the others: blue with a D in the center of it that had a dinosaur head sticking out of it. "Hmm… I wonder what would happen if I just connected the card reader with this toy and scan this card?" He did just that, but as he scanned it, the toy and device began to glow, merging into one rectangular black and yellow device. "What the-?" Then the device started to glow so that the entire room turned to white.

* * *

Elsewhere, a kid was watching TV. "You got the bathroom cleaned out, right?" his aunt asked from the kitchen.

"Did that yesterday. Also made sure not to make any messes." _Can't she just leave me alone?_ He was bulky, not fat, just big, and he had brown hair. He was wearing a green shirt under a blue jacket and had on the usual blue jeans.

"What about the room you're staying in?"

"That's practically spotless. You know I keep it that way."

"I'm just afraid that…"

"Everything's going to be fine, okay." His aunt was her usual paranoid self, and it didn't help that a year earlier he had come here unexpectedly to live. Of course, knowing the rest of his family, he wasn't surprised that she didn't trust him, despite proving himself time and again. He couldn't find anything to watch on TV like usual due to the lack of cable and so proceeded to go upstairs to the room to read a book. He opened the door, grabbed a book from his suitcase, and flopped on the king sized bed.

So much for just being a temporary move. It didn't help that the room was meant for someone else of the opposite gender. "Hey, Terriermon, how's it hangin?" He asked and the small bunny sized Digimon crawled out from under the bed.

"Oh, great. Nothing unusual."

The guy just nodded, "Good." He pulled his green and blue digivice out of his pocket and flipped it open to view a map of the area. "Huh? There's a new digivice signal from the cul-de-sac. It's black and yellow. Then there seems to be an emergence in an area ten miles south of here."

"You think that someone's gonna fight whatever's down there?" Terriermon asked.

"Well, yeah. This is an adult level Digimon too, so they kind of have to deal with it or else it will wreak havoc on the area."

"Can we go?"

"You know I don't want to get into the affairs of the local tamers. Especially after their leader rejected me after hearing lies."

"Who's down there dealing with it?"

"I don't know. None of the usual signals are ever in that area." He got up and said, "You're right, we have to do something about this. Ready?" Terriermon just nodded as he picked him up, ran down stairs, and told his aunt that he was off.

* * *

When the whiteness went away, Eddy was standing on a street corner somewhere else in town that he had never been to. It was obviously in the middle of the night and thick fog was covering the area, including where Eddy was. Then he saw a figure: a brunette girl around his age wearing sunglasses, a green shirt and some blue jeans with a long trenchcoat. She also had a device much like what Eddy had gotten before this weird experience, only where Eddy's device was black and yellow, hers was white and blue. Then Eddy turned the other way and saw a giant green lizard.

"Chameleonmon, Armor Level, Special attacks: tongue whip and heat eye. Ready Renamon?" Eddy heard the girl say as a large yellow fox showed up behind her with purple gloves on each hand engraved with the crest of love.

Eddy felt different there for some reason. All the sudden he realized he was standing there in his yellow boxers. "What gives?" He felt somewhat awkward being in his underwear in public. Then he scratched his head, and realized he had a full head of hair. "Sweet!" Before he thought that he was going to have to use Rogaine or something.

"Okay, Renamon, let's get this over with."

"Understood," the fox replied, moving right through Eddy who took that as a cue to move over to the other side and watch from there.

Then the girl pulled out a card, "Card Slash, Attack Plug-in A!" and Renamon was clearly stronger. Renamon and the Chameleonmon were wrestling now, and then the girl slashed another card: "Speed Plug-in B!" Meanwhile, the gusts from the fight were causing the girl's coat to sway in the wind causing Eddy to admire her figure.

Renamon disappeared from under Chameleonmon, jumped up into the air and yelled "Fox Leaf Arrowheads," causing white shards to materialize in front of her. That's when she looked straight at Eddy, even though he wasn't there. She shot the green reptile below, piercing him and causing him to disintegrate. Renamon then proceeded to load the data, absorbing the particles into her chest.

Eddy was stunned from the sight. Then, as he saw the mist disintegrate and a golden light head toward them, he whited out again, waking up the next morning.

* * *

When the brown-haired guy arrived, it was already too late and the girl was gone. "Don't worry, we'll help out next time," Terriermon assured him.

"That's not what I was thinking about. There's another tamer in this area that doesn't want to give himself away, but why?"

"Maybe he's like you."

"Doubt it. I feel so out of the loop now."

"You've been out of the loop ever since you got back from the digital world. You haven't been yourself. Whatever happened to the happy Robert I became partners with?"

"He was left behind in the digital world… along with his best friend. Let's go home already."

"You know you can beat that tamer leader if you just have me…"

"What's the point? I'd rather avoid fighting."  
Terriermon paused for a second. "Why are we here then?" Terriermon's question weighed heavily on Robert's mind as he swiped the card needed for them to go home.

* * *

Eddy woke up back in bed the following morning. He felt his hair to see if it was thick like in the dream. It was. Then he looked at the device in his hand: there was a cracked egg on the front. He held it up and looked at it, pressing the buttons to change the screen. After the egg, a screen appeared showing an arrow pointing to the left.

Eddy turned off the display, got up, and looked in his mirror. He seemed slightly taller. He didn't know how, other than that the device with him and the funky vision had something to do with it. "Man, this is awesome. Maybe I'll catch up with Double D or Ed."

Now, though, he had to find out what's waiting for him where the digivice was pointing. After breakfast, where his mom commented on his hair being thick again and how he looked just like his grandfather did when he was younger, he went through the door outside from his bedroom to the backyard and climbed over the fence he fell down into the lane face first. When he looked around, he didn't notice anybody else in the lane, which was weird considering it was a Saturday morning. Then he noticed the laughter coming from the playground. He walked in the direction of the arrow and it led him down the lane away from the main street and towards the junkyard and the trailer park. Thinking about the trailer park made Eddy worry for a second about a possible attack from the three girls who live there, but then he realized that he hadn't seen them in months. Not since the incident with his brother…

Not since Mondo-a-go-go…

Eddy kept on walking toward the junkyard, trying not to think about the horrors of the trailer park or the amusement park.

* * *

Robert was reading a novel when his digivice beeped. "Two realizations in such a short time? What could possibly be going on?" He asked Terriermon who was also reading, though his book was considerably thinner than Robert's.

"Why do so many Digimon realize here of all places?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Terriermon's partner asked. "Almost all emergences into the real world have been around here. We just haven't gone after any of them." He got up and adjusted himself. "This Digimon is a child-level Digimon, though, which means that the other team probably has their sights set on it. How about we go check it out?"

"And then if you run into that team leader guy, you can settle things."

Robert raised one eyebrow. "I hope it's better than that."

* * *

Kevin looked at his red digivice when it alerted him. "Another emergence? What? Only a child level?" Kevin was sitting at his desk working on homework and so decided to use his phone to call Nazz. After a few rings, she picked it up.

"Hey, Nazz. It turns out there's another bioemergence and it's a child level this time. Go get Double D. I want this to be his partner."

_"Alright dude! Consider it done." _It was the first time in months since a Digimon had appeared that would be a viable candidate to give to a tamer so that he could be on his team. Of all the kids in the cul-de-sac, Kevin figured that Double D would be the next one recruited, followed by Rolf, then Ed, then Eddy. All new tamers on their team would have to swear a vow of secrecy and hide their Digimon from their parents, friends, etc. They would also go on secret missions to stop Digimon from wreaking havoc on the real world, and those Digimon would be sent back to the Digital world from a lab at the nearby university.

DATS eat your heart out. Oh, and this is way more fun than StarCraft.

Kevin smiled.

* * *

Edd was working on a project at his house when he heard the doorbell. He ran as quickly as he could and opened the door to find… Nazz? "Hey, dude, what's up?"

"Um, just working on a way to increase the distance of a walkie-talkie, that's all," he said, sweating. Then he noticed the walking plant standing right next to Nazz. "What in Sam Hill is that thing?" he practically yelled.

"Oh, this is my partner Digimon, Palmon. Guess what? There was a Digimon that emerged in the real world and we were thinking of giving it to you as a partner. What do you think?"  
"Um," Edd was absolutely stupefied and in disbelief. "So, you're a bona fide talking Digimon?"

"Mmm… hmm…"

"Intriguing. Now if you ask me, this is way different from what I was expecting. I was half expecting Eddy to come to the door, bored and wanting me to entertain him but this…" Edd smiled. "…this is an intriguing scientific discovery! I have to see this."

Nazz giggled, "Okay dude, all you have to do is come with me. Listen, we don't have that much time to tame this thing so you're going to have to hurry up."  
"Gladly." Edd said as he started following the girl out of his house.

* * *

Eddy finally reached the junkyard after about five minutes and continued following the compass on his digivice. After a while, he spotted a giant dome of mist. He looked at the compass and saw that it was pointing him straight to it. "Oh, man, this is so weird." He continued walking and as he was about to go into the mist, he heard a voice.

"Hey!" Eddy looked to his right and saw a tall, somewhat overweight guy with brown hair and a small animal on his head. "You're not with those tamers from here in town, are you?"  
"Huh? No. I have no idea what you're talking about. I know that repeated exposure to tanning beds causes skin cancer but…" The new guy was laughing.

"I said tamer, not tanner." The guy looked around the area and then back at Eddy. "Your name is Edward isn't it?"  
"Yeah. Let me guess, you go to Peach Creek Jr. High?"

"Nope, I just happen to know Double D. Run into him at the library a lot. He showed me a few pictures. Robert's the name, by the way." The guy felt the mist. "I bet this thing will only open to the person with the right digivice."

"Like this thing?" Eddy asked, showing his digivice to Robert, who looked at it and smiled.

"Yeah, that." Eddy then held his digivice to the wall of mist and an opening appeared for them. So they entered.

Inside the mist, the two walked toward the center, where there was a lone lizard with blue scales, heavy black armor, and a gun. "Commandramon, Child-level."

"What the-? How'd you know that?" Then Eddy looked at Robert looking at his flipped open digivice. "Oh."

Commandramon head them and walked up to Eddy, sniffed him, and held out his hand. "You're my tamer, huh?"

"Um, yeah. I think so. I got this digivice earlier," Eddy said, holding it up.

"Who's he?" Commandramon asked, looking at Robert who was starting to visibly shake. "An enemy?"

"Nope, I don't even know him. He seems like a nice guy."

"Oh, okay."

"So, Robert, what's your Digimon?"  
"Um, his name is Terriermon," he replied. "I met him while in the digital world."

"Hmm…" Eddy grunted, nodding. Robert seemed trustworthy enough. He didn't seem to want to fight Eddy's Digimon or anything to that effect.

* * *

Outside, Nazz and Edd finally arrived. "Alright, dude, here we are!" Nazz exclaimed, walking towards the mist. Unfortunately, when she tried entering it, she couldn't: it was like a brick wall. "Dude, what gives? How about you try, Double D?" Edd tried going through as well but couldn't.

"This is odd. It looks like a sort of gas from outside, but it's not."

"Seriously, dude. I don't remember it being this way when I met my Digimon." Then Nazz looked at her pink and red digivice. "Whoa, how is this possible?"

"What?"

"There are two digivice signals coming from inside. I don't recognize either of them. I was told that green and blue belonged to a rogue tamer though."

"A rogue tamer?"  
"Yeah, he like did some horrible things in the digital world or something. I gotta call Kevin!"

* * *

"Yeah?" Kevin asked through his walkie-talkie. "We'll be on our way."

_"Come quick. I don't know how long we have until the fog dissipates. Not to mention there are two of them."_

"Right, see you there in a few. Whatever you do: don't let them evolve. Got it?"

_"You bet!"_ Then Kevin turned off his walkie-talkie.

"Ready to go kick Digimon butt?" Behind him in his dark closet, two glowing red eyes opened.

* * *

Next Chapter: Battle in the Junkyard. Mass Evolution.

A/N: If you read the previous version of this, I'm sorry for posting it early. Now, please review. I won't make any threats or anything to take this down if you don't review but it would just be nice.

As you can see, my objective with this fic is not to write a Digimon fic based on any series, despite the obvious similarities with Tamers in the first chapter, but to make something somewhat original with the two universes presented. Strangely enough, all three of the main tamer's Digimon from Tamers show up in this fic and Monodramon shows up as another character's Digimon way later. Other than that, the later story takes more from Adventure 02 and Savers. In what ways I won't reveal to you just yet.

Again, please review.


	2. Mass Evolution

Chapter 2: Mass Evolution. Battle in the Junkyard

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy…

Shortly after Nazz and Kevin finished talking, the fog dissipated, revealing several figures inside: Eddy and a guy that Nazz doesn't know. "Dude, Eddy, what are you doing here? What happened to your hair?"

"Um, I just came here to get my partner Digimon or whatever. Check it out; he's got a gun so he can shoot any bully that I run into."

"Ha, ha," Edd said, "I doubt you'd be able to bring that thing to school without anyone freaking out."

"Is this person an enemy? Can I shoot him?" Commandramon asked, startling everyone.

"What the? Seriously, does it look like he's attacking me? He's a friend. Now stop asking me that!" Eddy reprimanded.

"Sounds like Eddy's Digimon is slightly deranged," Robert said, astonished.

"Dude, that's an understatement," Nazz commented.

"I would hate to be stuck in a dark alley with that thing," Palmon commented.

"Hey! What are you doing dissing my Digimon?" Eddy yelled.

"Um, dude, he just asked if he could shoot us," Nazz replied. "I hope you'll be able to teach him better."

Eddy thought about it. "Don't worry, he'll be alright." Then Commandramon shot a bird. "Dude! Don't do that!"

"Oh, sorry, I'll only shoot when you give the orders, master."

"Don't call me master either. Just Eddy's fine."

Commandramon nodded. Then he turned in the direction of the cul-de-sac and started growling.

"Great, what is it now?" Eddy asked. Then quicker than expected, Commandramon gets tackled by a larger red lizard. "What the-?"

"Dude, Kevin!" Nazz yelled, and they looked over to see Kevin standing on top of a hill.

"Guilmon!" Kevin called and Guilmon detached his mouth from Commandramon's arm, "That's the wrong Digimon! Attack Terriermon!" Then Guilmon ran toward Robert and Terriermon, the latter jumping off his partner's head and running to get the oversized lizard away from him. "Now Robert, how does it feel to be outnumbered. I heard about your raids on various Digimon villages while you were in the digital world."  
Robert grimaced. "Um, what are you talking about? Why would I do that?"

"For the data."

"Um, right. Here's the thing, I don't know who told you that but I didn't do it."  
Nazz looked at Robert. She had never seen him before in her life before that moment, but somehow she had the feeling Robert was telling the truth. "Dude, knock it off, Kevin. Haven't you ever heard of due process?"  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kevin scoffed.

"He's supposed to get a fair trial, not be attacked without any proof."

"Besides, if I really attacked all those Digimon villages, why didn't I just attack Commandramon and have Terriermon steal his data?" Robert asked. "Your accusations are groundless. Where did you hear them?"

"I've got my source. Besides, where's the proof that you didn't do such things. You just showed up here at the end of last summer without any ties to the area and with a Digimon. I just had to ask about you."  
"Who did you ask?"  
Kevin just said, "A trusted source. We deal with the local Digimon for them."

"Which is?"

"That is none of your concern. They just had files on you that detailed your massacres!"  
"If that's the case that even you are hesitant to name your source, then how can you trust it?" Edd asked.

Then shots fired on the ground right in front of Kevin. "What the!" Kevin saw Commandramon with his gun pointed at him. "Dude! Keep your gun away from me!"  
"Commandramon!" Eddy yelled, "Support Terriermon by going after Guilmon instead. I'll take care of this guy." Eddy walked up to Kevin and asked, "What's wrong with you? You're starting to sound like you did a year ago."

**The previous August…**

Kevin was finishing up his cookout with the Eds for the day when he saw something strange: something that looked like a purple geyser going straight up in the air. "Dude, what the heck is that?" he asked.

"Curious. I'm not certain," Edd replied. They were about ready to leave Kevin's backyard barbecue when they saw that in the distance. "Unfortunately I must leave. Mother and Father are expected home soon and I don't want to miss dinner with them."

"And then there's the latest monster movie for me folks: 'The Evil Eye of Truth,' about a giant eyeball! Cool, huh?" Ed asked.

"Yeah, really," Eddy replied sarcastically, "I have to go visit my family. It sucks."

"And now I have to clean up alone! Great!" Kevin responded.

Kevin cleaned up as much as he felt like as quickly as he could and left the yard. Everything else can wait, he thought, walking around the cul-de-sac to where the 'geyser' was. He ran as fast as he could. For some reason he felt some calling, like it was something important. It was past the edge of Peach Creek, in a place he rarely went. It was basically in the middle of a peach orchard, and there was a dome of mist there as well. "Dude, this is so weird," he commented to himself as he climbed over the fence, ignoring the 'No Trespassing' sign.

He was able to get into the misty dome which apparently nobody else paid attention to. Inside, he found a large reptile, staring off into space, its tail twitching.

"What the-?" Kevin exclaimed, as the lizard looked over at him and ran over him, sniffing. Kevin was startled. The thing had sharp teeth. _What if it tries to eat me?_ he thought. Then the thing started licking his face. _Oh, well, the owners of this place probably know about this already. Yeah…_He then walked off, the lizard following.

He found out the orchard was abandoned upon getting out of the dome, something that he was relieved about. Then again, it probably fell on hard economic times like most of the country, including Peach Creek. Unfortunately for Kevin, the lizard wouldn't stop following and Kevin was paranoid of what people would think seeing this lizard right behind him. That is until…

"Hey, nice costume, dweeb!" some hotshot yelled out his car. "It's a bit early for Halloween, don't you think?" This cured Kevin's paranoia, but also made him irritated.

"Won't you stop following me already?" The lizard just tilted its head. "Sorry, but I can't have any pets. Not after my brother accidently ran my cat through the washing machine."

The lizard tilted its head again, "Pets?" it asked.

_It can talk?_ "Yeah, you know. Like animals." Then Kevin shooed him away, "Come on, man, go. Please." Then the lizard just walked the opposite direction. Of course, what Kevin didn't realize after the lizard walked around the corner is that it was still following him.

"Hey, so, I'm sorry about not coming to the barbecue earlier. I kind of forgot about it," Chaun said, sitting on Kevin's couch. "Ever since I got back from Colorado, things have been in a fog."  
"So, what were you doing there, anyway? How were you here in the morning and there five hours later?"

"Long story. If I told you, you probably wouldn't believe me anyway. Let's just say it involved an interdimensional portal and the Gourd. Yeah."  
"Dude, the Gourd was a joke."  
"Heck yeah, he was. Even with the whole interdimensional portal thing he was ineffectual. After a bunch of screwing around, we just kind of ended up in Colorado. It was fun, except for the whole being away for a few months thing when it turned out that it was just a few hours here."

A confused look came upon Kevin's face. "Okay… You've got to tell me more sometime. Oh and where's Garrett."

A gloomy look fell on Chaun's face. "He's still in the other world."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope, I'm not."

Then Kevin heard something crash upstairs. "Dude, what the heck's that about?" Then something dawned on him, "Oh, no it didn't!" He ran upstairs, followed by Chaun who was just as confused as he was. When they got into Kevin's room, they saw that his dresser had fallen over. "It's in here, I know it."  
"What's in here?" Chaun asked, helping Kevin get his dresser back to where it was supposed to be while trying to keep clothes from falling out.

"This giant red lizard that followed me home," Kevin said as they finished putting the dresser back. Kevin looked at the open window and knew that that was how the thing got into his room in the first place. He looked around for where it could have gone and zeroed in on the closet. "Hey, I know you're in there." The closet opened up and the oversized reptile peeked. "Yeah, don't you remember what I said about you staying here?"  
It nodded. Chaun pulled a green and black device out of his pocket and flipped it open. "Guilmon, Child level, Virus Type. What the heck's a Digimon doing in the human world?"

Kevin looked back at Chaun. "Dude, you've got to be joking."

"No way, dude, I'll be back in a few minutes, if you don't mind. I'll show you my Digimon." Chaun said, hurrying out the door. Kevin just stood there, surprised and in disbelief. He kept expecting to wake up and find that this day didn't happen.

Back in the present day, things were heating up. "Dude, back then I may have been mean to you guys for stupid reasons but seriously, this guy massacred several villages!"

"And I keep telling you I didn't," Robert said. "Now seriously, who told you about all this? I want to know if somehow someone who came back from the digital world at the same time I did decided to slander me."

"Dude, it's not slander if it's true."

"It is if it isn't." Kevin had enough of it and proceeded to punch Robert in the face. Robert recoiled from the punch and faced him. He pointed to the other cheek and said: "Here you go if you want to do it again. I'm not going to fight back."

"Yeah, so, I am!" Kevin took up on Roberts offer and struck him on the other cheek.

"Kevin, what do you think you're doing!" Edd yelled.

"Yeah, really dude! If he really was so cold blooded, don't you think that he wouldn't have hesitated to fight you?" Nazz asked.

"Stay out of this!" Kevin snapped back, facing Nazz. Then he turned around to see Robert walking away. "Guilmon!" The large lizard disengaged the other Digimon and blocked Robert's apparent exit growling.

"Terriermon! It's time," Robert said, pulling out his digivice and turning around to look at Kevin. A green light started to glow from the digivice as the evolution sequence started.

**EVOLUTION_**

"Terriermon evolve!" Terriermon's evolution sequence consisted of him transforming inside a ball of some sort, skin peeling off of him and revealing a green network underneath him and then Galgomon appearing, the adult forms name showing up in the background. "Galgomon!"

The previous August, Kevin and Guilmon were hanging out in Kevin's room and Chaun ran back in, this time with a black and red backpack. "Alright, Kev, I've gotta show you this," Chaun said, opening up his backpack to have a large green insect come out. "This is Wormmon. I met him while in the digital world."

"You're kidding."

"I assure you he's not," Wormmon said. "I'm a Digimon who's partnered with Chaun."

"Yeah, I have yet to actually get him to evolve to perfect, but he's awesome."

"Well I can combine with another Digimon to get to that level."

"Yeah, but remember how after he was able to get to perfect on his own, jogressing kind of lost its point?"  
"Man, this is nuts. So, what do you do with Digimon anyway?"  
"Well they're your partners. Since we're in the real world, we kind of have to protect it from them, not that other Digimon have actually come here, other than yours."  
"Yeah? That's crazy."

A week later, something emerged in the playground. "What the-?" Kevin was surprised that another dome appeared as he looked at it from his window. "Dude, can you see this Guilmon?" The Digimon was looking out the window, his pupils small and growling. "Somehow I get the feeling we need to get out there and do something about it." Kevin ran out his room, snuck past his parents, and ran out the front door. It was in the middle of the night so he didn't really worry about any of the neighbors seeing him with a giant lizard. Of course, he needed to be quick about it but that didn't matter that much. It was still summer after all. "Okay, dude, let's take this guy down!"

When Kevin reached the dome though, he didn't find the Digimon he was expecting, and instead saw several trucks surrounding the playground, trying to eliminate any evidence that a Digimon was even there. How they managed to beat whatever emerged there in the first place was baffling to Kevin. "Dude, we should get out of here, Guilmon!" Then unexpectedly some nets captured both Kevin and Guilmon. "Dude, let me go!"

Kevin heard some speaking in some foreign language. He didn't know what it was but he thought it was ugly all the same. Then one of the workers, apparently the head of the department walked over to him. "I see you've got a Digimon, eh?" he said, in a vaguely Canadian accent. "It's a shame that since you're one of them tamers we have to take it away."

"You better leave Guilmon alone you…!"

The man interrupted Kevin before he could spout out any profanity. "Eh, you might prove useful."  
"Yeah, how?"  
"Well, we've been having difficulty dealing with these Digimon emerging. It seems the people most able to keep Digimon at bay are tamers like yourself. But if you won't help us, then you can kiss your little red friend goodbye. Sounds like a good deal, eh?"

"Yeah right! I don't even know who you're with."

"Okay, eliminate the Guilmon." Some of the others lifted up devices that looked much like digivices to point at Guilmon. This caused Kevin to cave in.

"Stop!" Then all the sudden, a red light came from out of nowhere, a white and red digivice forming."  
"Hmm… fighting with a Digimon when you don't even have a digivice, eh? You don't know much do you?"

"Just tell me what I need to do and let me and Guilmon go, okay?"

"Remove the nets!" The leader looked at Kevin, his glasses glistening in the moonlight. "What I want you to do is simple: defeat any Digimon that comes into the real world. If you defeat a Digimon, it will dematerialize and after about thirty seconds, give or take, it will turn back into an egg. Now what I want you to do is get me that egg. What we do with these eggs is return them to the digital world so that they can live there in peace and not trash the real world. If the Digimon that emerges is a child level Digimon like yours that won't be destroying everything in sight, you may take one of your friends to try to tame it. That way, dealing with more monsters will be easier. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, and another thing. Be aware of those who are already tamers. Some of them aren't nice. One of them, for instance, led a team of tamers and Digimon to destroy numerous small villages in the digital world consisting of baby Digimon."

"What the-? Dude, that's just sick!"

"My sentiments exactly. When you destroy a Digimon, you have an opportunity to have your Digimon load that data so they can become stronger, potentially evolving to their adult level permanently. That was the objective of this group of tamers."

"Tell me who they are so I can deal with them when they come around."

"Their leader is someone named Robert, who has a Terriermon."

Kevin made sure to remember that name so he could face him when the time came.

"If you meet him, take decisive action and defeat his Digimon and take his digivice. That way, we don't have to deal with the shadow of his presence anymore. Then again, the chances of him showing up here are slim, even though his aunt lives here."  
"Alright, dude, understood."

Back in the present, Kevin had already evolved his Digimon to the adult level.

"Oh, my-" Edd started saying from behind a car, "This is so violent."

"Don't worry dude," Nazz said, behind the same car, "It's not like they're going to kill each other. If they get mortally wounded, they'll just revert back to their lower form or at worst their egg form."

"That's not exactly comforting, Nazz. Besides, what if they injure us?"

Eddy overheard that and was afraid for his Digimon. Commandramon wasn't doing much except for helping Galgomon shoot down Growlmon and avoiding fireballs by camouflaging himself. The shots didn't seem to be affecting the oversize dinosaur, though, and soon Growlmon unleashed another fireball. "Man, I gotta do something…" He mumbled to himself. That's when Eddy saw a pole on the ground. _Of course._ Eddy did the obvious: he ran over and grabbed the pole, and then he ran up behind Growlmon and hit him on the tail. "Take that you overgrown lizard!" The Digimon howled in pain and turned around to launch a fireball at Eddy but he was hit by a barrage of bullets and the fireball ended up going up instead.

When it regained its composure though, it turned back toward Eddy who was scared stiff. _Come on! Move! _Eddy thought, but he couldn't.

"Galgomon!" Robert yelled out.

"I'm all out of ammo!" Galgomon replied.

Then, all the sudden, Eddy's digivice started glowing with yellow light.

**EVOLUTION _**

The evolution sequence for Commandramon was similar to the one for Terriermon, except the color scheme was yellow and black. "Commandramon Evolve!" he shouted, the skin coming off of him and revealing the net-like structure underneath him. Then the egg-like field covered over him and dissipated, revealing his evolution. "Sealsdramon!"

"Whoa," Kevin said, "That thing is sick!"  
"That's my Digimon for you!" Eddy yelled out, grinning. "Okay Sealsdramon, use… um… whatever attacks you know to take this guy down!"

"Got it!" the Digimon applied. "Death Behind!" He yelled out, stabbing Growlmon in the back, the dinosaur roaring and shifting his attack away from Eddy and launching his fireball into the air.

"Whoa," was Eddy's only response.

"Alright, Galgomon, time to finish this," Robert said, pulling a card out of his pocket.

"Growlmon, attack Galgomon!" Kevin yelled, causing his Digimon to run towards Galgomon, Sealsdramon still latched onto his back and launched a fireball at the giant dog-rabbit. Galgomon was hit head on and devolved due to the shock.

"Terriermon!" Robert yelled out, running towards his Digimon. Then he realized that Growlmon was going to lunge down for the kill before he got there, that is until Growlmon lifted his head toward the sky and shrieked in terror: Sealsdramon had stabbed him a second time.

"What the-? Dude your Digimon's twisted!" Kevin told Eddy.

"Look who's talking. At least mine's not trying to eat yours after it lost," Eddy shot back. "Now seriously, that's low."  
"Dude, you know what Robert did in the digital world, so it's nothing compared to that."

"Man, what are you talking about? Robert didn't do anything in the digital world," Kevin heard a voice behind him and turned around to see…

"Chaun!" There he was, sitting smugly on top of a large boulder.  
"Stingmon, separate Growlmon, Terriermon and Sealsdramon!" Chaun turned to Kevin, "Now, Kevin, you've got a _lot_ of explaining to do. Seriously, man."  
***

Back in the past, Kevin was talking to Chaun about his offer. "I don't know man. This sounds all shady to me."

"Dude, he's a professor at the university."

"Yeah. Still, something inside me doesn't like it. This sounds ridiculously familiar though."

"Yeah? One of your tamer friends work for him?"

"No. I remember my friends in Colorado saying that they accidentally got sucked into a gate at a seminar. Chances are this guy may have created the gate."

"Well, if it's accidental…"  
"The point was that one of my friends from Colorado is still trapped in the digital world and so is Garrett. Most likely years have past since he's gone there. Now seriously, can you imagine a worse way to spend your adolescence than being stuck in a foreign world away from your family with an evil empire among other dangers?"

"You've got a point there."

Later on, Kevin went wandering around the area when he walked by a big brown-haired guy with a digivice attached to his belt. _Huh?_ Kevin though, wondering if there was a chance this guy was one of the tamers. "Hey, dude!" Kevin called, "Is that a digivice?"  
The guy looked behind. He pulled his hands out of his pocket and smiled. "You're another tamer, huh? I don't think I met you yet."

"Yeah, my name's Kevin." Kevin realized that it would be prudent to be friendly at least until he figured out if this guy was a rogue tamer. He shook the guy's hand.

"The name's Robert and my partner's Terriermon. What's yours?" The guy was smiling even more. Kevin's face all the sudden turned dark. "You…"

Robert was confused. "What? Did I do something to offend you?"  
"Yeah, you raider of villages!"

"What the heck are you talking about?" Robert asked as Kevin jumped for his digivice. Robert was quicker than he looked and got out of the way so that Kevin face planted. "I have no idea what you heard about me but I assure you it isn't true."  
"That's what they all say."

"Okay, I'll leave then. I thought it was nice to find another tamer but…"

"If you ever show up again, you're going down dude."

Robert just ignored him and walked away, shaking his head.

In the present, Chaun and Kevin were debating inside Edd's house while Eddy, Edd, Robert and Nazz just sat there. "Dude, I met up with Robert and his posse after two days in the digital world. There's no way he did what he did. This professor dude is seriously pulling your leg."

"Yeah? How?"

"For one thing, he wasn't team leader or anything of the sort. Nobody really held that position. Even unofficially it wasn't Robert. Then there's the whole destroying villages for data thing. Although we did hear reports of that kind of stuff happening, it was far from where we even went and was mainly confined to the Folder Continent. We were on Server. Seriously, I'm your friend. You can trust me far more than some random scientist with a grudge."

"Dude, do you have any idea why this guy is out to get you?" Kevin asked Robert who simply shrugged.

"Beats me. I didn't really meet any of the scientists at that expo I went to in Colorado Springs so I can't imagine a reason they'd have anything against me, especially being from this part of the country where I haven't been before last summer."

"What made you move here?" Chaun asked. "You had a pretty decent gig back there."

"I felt kind of…" Robert lost himself in thought.

"Guilty…" Kevin mumbled. "But not about destroying anything in the digital world."

"No. My best friend's still trapped there. I did the calculations and about 500 years would have passed."

Kevin thought soberly about it.

"That would really suck," Nazz commented, "Spending your entire life in the digital world separated from family."

"That it would. I communicated with his sister recently and he still hasn't come back, something that makes me depressed and angry at the same time."

"No kidding," Kevin said.

"And then there's Garrett," Chaun said, "He's still there. So is that one dirtbag, Daniel."

"Dude, we need to at least figure out what happened to them," Nazz said.

"I concur, so that we can at least bring closure to their families," Edd stated.

"But even if we get to the digital world, how would we get out? For that matter, getting through the place," Robert reasoned, "There are perfect-level Digimon everywhere there."

"I guess we just need to get our Digimon to perfect," Chaun said, "At least you found a way around that."

"Yeah," Robert nodded.

"Well, it was good chatting with you guys, but I gotta get back," Chaun got up to leave. "See you all later!"

"Alright, dude!" Nazz said. "Come to think of it, I got to go too. My mom and I are going shopping. Seeya!" Nazz proceeded to leave as well.

"Oh, and another thing, guys: Don't reveal your Digimon to anyone else. Got it?" Kevin asked.

"Alright, you bet," Eddy affirmed.

"I can imagine this causing panic if too many people know about this so I'll obey your rules as well," Edd said.

"By the way, dudes, this includes Ed." This startled the other two Eds. "Hey, Robert, does anyone know about Terriermon?"

"Nope, not as far as I know. My aunt doesn't have a clue."  
"Good. What about that girl from Colorado? Has she been dealing with any emergences?"

"She hasn't had any her way. Her parents do know about her Digimon, though, just so you know. How they found out is anyone's guess."

Edd pondered the implications of the situation of the girl Robert knows and then Eddy asked: "Hey, is this girl our age with brown hair? Does she have a yellow fox for a Digimon?"

"No and no. She's like ten. The girl you're thinking of is Rachelle, who I haven't talked to since the trip to the digital world. We've all had our digivices on stealth mode since coming back so there's no way to contact her. I think she is living with her mom right now so… wait a minute! How do you know about her?"

"I had a dream last night where her Digimon was fighting another Digimon."

"Okay…" Robert didn't know what to think of that. _She couldn't be living near here, could she?_

"Anyway, dude, I better get going," Kevin said. "See you all later, dudes. By the way, Robert, sorry for the whole misunderstanding."  
"Don't worry; I'm not the type to hold grudges. By the way, I still hurt from those punches."

Kevin left and Eddy asked: "So, what now?"

"Well, I could go get some board games or something," Edd said.

Neither Eddy nor Robert was particularly thrilled about that.

Elsewhere, in the Digital World, trouble was brewing. "Sir! We have detected an anomalous signature in the human world," a Nanimon yelled out to a mysterious human figure in a lavishly designed room with gold pillars and white curtains. "The signature was consistent with that of a digivice."

"Another tamer, after so many months," the figure replied, turning around. He was in the same age group as the other kids and had blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a robe and had a purple Tsukaimon hovering right next to him. "What does the signature coincide with?"

"From the looks of it, the digivice signature is similar to one of the legendary tamers…" The glair in the eyes of the blond human caused the Nanimon to shutter.

"You've failed me yet again."

"But sir, I couldn't figure out a way to…"  
"Tsukaimon." The human held up his digivice and slide an evolution card through it. "Dispose of this weakling."  
The human walked away as a huge shadow appeared behind him, devouring the Nanimon. He smiled an evil smile.

"Wow, I get through this weird day and nobody notices that I have a full head of hair. What gives?" Eddy asks Commandramon while he flops on his bed, who looks at him confused.

"What's hair?" the Digimon asks.

Eddy runs his hand through his hair on his head. "This stuff. How do you not know what hair is?"

The reptilian monster just shrugged. "I don't know a lot of things."  
"So, how are we going to handle the rooming and feeding arrangements?"

Commandramon just shrugged again. Eddy reached under his bed and pulled out the box of cards from the night before, looking through all of them for that blue card, but he couldn't find it. He figured it had to be in there so he just held the box upside down and dumped all the cards out. Unfortunately, the box had a false bottom and a bunch of other things fell out as well. "What the-?" Eddy exclaimed, looking at the pictures of his brother with goggles on instead of a hat and sunglasses. He was surrounded by several other kids from back then and looked to be about sixteen. The other kids included a black guy wearing a green shirt, a fat blond guy who's also taller than the others, a latin girl, and a pale blonde girl.

"Dude, what's with this group?" Eddy asked, then he found the next picture, one of each of the tamers with partner Digimon he didn't recognize. "Wait, so my brother was a tamer?"

"Really?" Commandramon asked.

"Looks like it, unless they just photoshopped the monsters."

"What's photoshop?"

"A paint program, I think. I've never actually messed around with it. I've just heard of it." Eddy looked at the rest of what was in there, more photographs and a tag necklace of some sort. "What's this? Here I thought red was more my bro's color than purple."

Then something else broke his concentration: his mom's voice. "Eddy! Time for dinner!"

"Oh crap!" Unfortunately for him, he noticed his Digimon growling at the door, pointing a gun at it. "What the heck do you think you're doing?" he yelled.

"Should I rid you of this person?"  
"What! No!"

Then his mom said something, "Eddy, do you have a friend over? Tell him that there's enough food for all of us."  
"Did she say food?" Commandramon asked, his eyes and mouth suddenly getting wide, starting to drool.

Eddy rolled his eyes. "You know we can't let her see you."

"Eddy! What are you doing in there?" Eddy could hear footsteps down the hall.

"Nothing mom!" Needless to say, Eddy was beginning to freak out, so he grabbed Commandramon and threw him into the closet. He was going to run over to the door to prevent his mom from opening it, but unfortunately, she opened it too quickly and was shocked at seeing her son in front of her, taller than he had been the night before.

"Oh, crap," He said slowly.

"Eddy, what's going on? Why are you so defensive?" She wasn't tall by any means for an adult and she was beautiful for her age with long black hair in a ponytail and lipstick on her lips. She looked over and saw the cards, pictures, and crest on Eddy's bed and came to a realization. "Where is it?" she asked, sternly, her eyes narrowing.

"Where is what?" Eddy asked, feigning stupidity. His mom immediately walked over to the closet and opened the door. Commandramon was trying to remain inconspicuous despite being in the middle of the floor.

The cyborg lizard looked up at her.

"Hi, what's your name?" the lizard asked.

"Sharon McGee. When did you meet my son?"  
"Um…" the lizard got up and took time to think.

"I found him earlier," Eddy started saying, "I'm sorry that I brought him home. Please don't make me put him on the streets. I beg of you."  
"I wasn't going to do that. Your brother brought home something like him when he was about your age. Did you by any chance go…"  
"Go where?"  
"Never mind." She then turned back to the Digimon. "So, what's your name?"

"Commandramon." The Digimon was in shock.

"Okay, Commandramon, good to meet you. Just don't bring that gun of yours anywhere else in the house, understand?"  
Commandramon dropped the gun and Eddy's mom proceeded to walk toward the hall.

"So my brother had a Digimon?"

"Yes, its name was Agumon. Now come down and tell us how you got Commandramon and why you all the sudden decided to start wearing a toupee."

Eddy stood there silent for a few minutes from shock as his mom left. "Man, you were so close to ruining everything. If it weren't for me and my…"  
"You? You didn't do anything." Commandramon was confused.

"Another word and you're going outside!"  
Commandramon shut up as they walked out of the room to eat as the crest glowed with lavender light amongst the pictures on Eddy's bed.

Next Chapter: Kudamon

A/N: Sorry this chapter ended up so long. I have no idea how either. As you can see, I'm still trying to solidify everything with this fic and there's a lot of characters and plot to go through. Heh. Again, read and review.


	3. Kudamon

Chapter 3: Kudamon appears! The battle at school

Disclaimer: I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon. There you go.

"What's causing the delay?" The blond tamer in the digital world asked, sitting in a chair in the middle of a room full of Digimon on computer screens. The room looked strangely similar to what you'd expect of a bridge on Star Trek, designed in gold and white.

"Nothing, sir," a SnowAgumon assured, "I'm getting a location. He seems to be realizing, sir."

_Oh ,_ "Location of realize point? Is it anywhere in Colorado?"

"No, my scanners are pointing to somewhere on the east coast, near a small suburb named Peach Creek."

_Excellent. _The rogue tamer smiled. "Okay, have the digital gate ready for me in an hour." The tamer got up and walked out of the room. "Tsukaimon?" The flying purple rodent flew behind him, following, as he walked into the elevator.

Edd was printing a paper he had to get for a class off his computer when he heard something knocking at his window. "Huh?" he wondered who could be tapping at it, then the thought crossed through his mind that it was probably just Eddy pulling tricks on him again.

He heard the window get tapped again, so he looked over and saw…

"Oh my…"  
***

Later, at school, while Eddy was busy listening to a boring history lecture about the start of the Cold War, someone passed a note to him. _Meeting of tamers at lunch. Be there or else. – Kevin_

Of course Kevin would say something like that, but then again, in all the time that Eddy has known the redhead, he'd been known to talk as if he were tougher than he actually is. Eddy looked over at his friend and just gave him a look. It was strange leaving Commandramon at home during the day, but Eddy's mom was nice enough to take care of him. In fact, she kept him in line more than anything.

Now, as far as Eddy's hair getting thick and as far as his growth spurt, nobody could figure out it happened. Now Eddy's halfway between his height he's had since he was eight and Edd's height, which was good since he didn't worry about being short for the rest of his life anymore.

Eddy was just staring into space when his teacher, a black male in his late thirties with a receding hairline banged on his desk, scaring the snot out of Eddy. "Eddy! What is the name of the group of nations that the Soviet Union got together to rival NATO?"

"The Warsaw Pact."

"Wow, you got it right."

"We're reading 'Ender's Game' right now in English and I just guessed it." The teacher rolled his eyes and the kids laughed quietly amongst themselves. Strangely enough, in the days since the beginning of his growth spurt and his getting his digivice, Eddy has been able to concentrate a bit better in some things. Before he would struggle with school but now it seemed to be getting a bit easier. Of course he would have to work at it, something he didn't feel like doing ever, but still. It was a miracle he passed sixth grade and he was actually held back a year once. Strangely enough, so was Edd, but Eddy had no idea why.

First period US History was one of the classes that he didn't share with Edd, so he couldn't copy his homework. When the bell rang to go to the next class, he was ready to leave. Next period was English, which may have a pop quiz. Of course, Eddy was reading the book. Before he had trouble visualizing the goings on in novels, but now he could see things clearly, even if he had to make up designs for the characters of the book like he did with Ender's Game. For some reason he couldn't help visualizing himself as Ender and his brother as Peter. Unfortunately for him, when he tried visualizing Valentine, he got the brunette chick from the transformation. Not that she wasn't hot; he just didn't want to visualize her as his sister. He was glad he didn't have a sister but he wouldn't mind a sister like the Valentine chick in the novel.

Of course, he still didn't want to admit to liking to read, even though he was starting to enjoy it. Reading's for nerds like Double D, he thought.

Speaking of which, Eddy saw him at his locker during the passing period. It looked like he was talking into it or something, which Eddy thought was weird. "Hey, what's with you today?" Eddy asked as Edd took out the book for the next class.

"Oh, nothing. I kind of slept in and missed the bus."  
Eddy smiled. "Liar. You never sleep in. So, what's in the locker? You get a cell phone?"

"Eddy, you know how much I uphold the school rules!"

"Yeah. I guess you're right. Then again…" Eddy shoved past Edd and looked into his locker before he could do anything. "Hah! I knew it! Oh, yeah, meeting for tamers at lunch in the library, now that you are one, hehehe."

"Eddy! You think that I'll be going with you on your stupid little adventures and fighting monsters with you? You're sorely mistaken."

"Dude, what are you talking about?" a kid, presumably a sixth grader asked, walking by.

"Final Fantasy, now get lost," Eddy replied instinctively and the kid walked away. "By the way, I think my Commandramon could beat your Weaselmon or whatever in a fair fight."

"Actually, my name is Kudamon," the white haired ferret Digimon said from the inside of the locker.

"Whatever. So, what's your digivice look like?"

"I don't seem to have one, yet."

"What? You don't have a digivice? You can't be a tamer without one. Oh well, see you at lunch."

"Good you made it," Kevin said, sitting at the table waiting for everyone. Almost everyone was there. Robert walked in behind Eddy and took a seat by Chaun while Eddy sat next to Nazz.

"So, all that's left is Double D," Eddy commented as Edd walked in.

"Made it. So, what is the subject of this meeting?"

"Not much. Chaun, could you fill in on the details?" Kevin asked.

"Gladly. Well, this morning at about ten, I noticed a long-range signal on my digivice. It seems like one of my old enemies from our trip to the digital world decided to come to Peach Creek. "

"Enemy? A Digimon?" Edd asked.

"Nope, a tamer. Unlike any of us, he's completely off the bunker. This also proves that the time may inexplicably not be faster in the digital world at the moment."

"It's not going to be another misunderstanding like with me, is it?" Robert inquired warily.

"Nope. You of all people should know him well. It's Daniel." Robert's eyes grew wide and he looked straight at his friend.

"Huh? Who's this Daniel guy?" Eddy asked.

"Well, he was in my group that got sucked into the Digital World," Robert explained. "Let's just say that when the time came for him to choose sides, he decided to turn against us. He's nowhere near as bad as the girl, though."

"I don't want to even think about her, dude. That chick was freaky, and not in the hot way," Chaun said.

"Unfortunately, the only one who can bring his Digimon to school and get away with it is Chaun."

"And Double D," Eddy blurted out.  
"Eddy!" Edd yelled, causing the librarian to make a large shh sound.

"I was wondering what you were doing here," Kevin said. "So, you got it right now?"

Edd nodded and unzipped his backpack, and the white ferret-like Digimon jumped out and around his neck. "This is Kudamon. Unfortunately, I don't have a digivice. I'd also rather not get involved in any of your fights. What if this turns into another misunderstanding like the other day with Robert?"

"It won't," Robert said, affirmatively. "Believe me; you'll understand when you meet Daniel." Then Robert turned to Kevin again. "What about me and Terriermon. Shouldn't we help Wormmon?"

"You're actually going with me. We're going back to the emergence point just in case he's there."

"There's something else," Robert added, "This guy can evolve his Digimon to Perfect. Of the five of us in the end, only two of us could do that. Then there's Chaun who required the help of one of those to get Stingmon to that level."

"Yeah, man, I can't Jogress without him around," Chaun said. "What if Danny comes here and attacks."

"Dude, I'm aware of that. If you have to deal with a perfect level, let us know and we'll come back."

"I hope you know what you're doing, dude," Chaun replied.

"Then there's another thing. What do you think you're doing? Skipping school?" Edd objected. "I don't think that this 'Rogue Tamer' is enough to forsake your education!"  
"Double D, I don't even go to this school," Robert said, surprising Edd. "I'm actually home-schooled at the moment."

"I knew I didn't remember seeing you here," Eddy commented, "Lucky!"

"And besides," Kevin said, "We can get there and back, right Robert? Chaun told me about something you figured out how to do with your Digimon with in the digital world."

"Um, yeah." Robert's eyes narrowed, "How much did you tell him, Chaun?"

"As much as I could. I figured he needs to know," Chaun said coolly. "Besides, he seems to have made himself unofficial team leader. His judgments have been good, except for the mishap with you."

Robert nodded and got up. "Okay, then, let's go. Ready to do that trick, Terriermon?"

The Digimon nodded and the two of them left, Kevin following. Finally Kevin turned around and told Chaun, "Bring Edd with you if Daniel shows."

"You bet! Just remember what I said about evolving to perfect."  
"Remember what I said about calling, dude." Kevin finally left.

"Okay, so, Edd, do you know anything about your Digimon's special abilities?" Chaun asked. They were now in science class. For some reason the teacher just puts assignments on the board and lets the kids do whatever, not caring as long as they get good grades. Because of this, Chaun, Edd and Eddy were talking about Digimon. Ed was at the table too.

"No, I don't really know anything about my Digimon."

"Cool, what Digimon do you have Double D?" Ed asked.

"Kudamon," Edd replied.

"Inspector Sampson's Digimon! He's so cool."

"So, what do you know about my Digimon?" Eddy asked.

"Let me see your digivice." Eddy handed the black kid his digivice. Chaun showed him what to do. "First you go to this menu here, then here, and voila, you got your Digimon's stats and information."

"Oh, cool. Whoa, it seems my Digimon can blend in with his background. Sweet. That means I can take him to school!"

"Well, that's convenient," Edd commented.

"Man, maybe I can get him to sneak into the girl's locker room with a camera and…"  
Chaun was laughing but Edd didn't see the humor in it. "Eddy! How dare you think such a thing?"

"Relax, it's not like he can camouflage a camera too."

"Besides, wouldn't it be illegal since they're all under eighteen?" Chaun asked, receiving a stare from Edd.

"So, how do we know if this Rogue is here?" Eddy asked.

"We won't. I detected his digivice when he first got here but he seems to have put it in stealth mode. Until he rears his ugly head, we won't know he's here. Chances are though, he's after Kudamon."

"Oh my…" Edd exclaimed.

Awhile later, Edd was wandering through the halls when he ran into Kevin. "Turns out he's not at the emergence site, dude, so keep your eyes peeled, okay?" Kevin said. "By the way, don't worry about the digivice. You'll get one when you need it. See you later." Kevin walked onward to his next class.

It still baffled Edd. What made this tamer go mad in the first place so that he would betray the others? Unfortunately, Edd would get his answer sooner than he had hoped, as on his way into his next class, he spotted a blond person in very unusual attire: a black outfit that looked like a boy's Japanese school uniform. Not only that, but there was a purple rodent on his head with giant ears. From what he knew of Digimon from researching them the last few days was that there was one very similar named Patamon, but that one was yellow. Edd realized he couldn't confront the person right then and there since he was already drawing weird looks from the other students.

To say that he wasn't covert was an understatement. Edd gulped and walked into the classroom.

After about ten minutes in that class, the fire alarm went off. "Everyone, you know what this means. Go out in single file and leave your backpacks behind," the old teacher said. She had grey hair in a bun, her face was very jowly, and she was wearing very formal attire.

Edd realized he needed Kudamon, so he opened his backpack. "Get onto my neck now." The Digimon nodded and jumped onto his neck and down his shirt. Thankfully due to how he held himself, he wasn't very noticeable, hiding in the front of Edd's shirt just below his belly button.

As soon as he was out of the classroom, he did the unthinkable and broke free from the line, running down the hall and hoping the teacher didn't notice him. He ran around the corner and into Chaun, who held a finger up to his mouth indicating to keep quiet. Wormmon was on his shoulder. "Okay, we'll be going up to the roof so put on these masks for disguise once we get to the hatch. Everyone else is going outside, got that?" Chaun whispered.

"Understood. What if he turns out to not be up there?"

"My Digimon can fly in his adult form so I should be able to help out."

"Good. What about me?"

"Oh, you don't even have a digivice yet. Don't worry, you'll get yours real soon, I'm sure of it." Chaun smiled.

Edd nodded and they snuck up a hatch, finally making it to the top. They looked around and the roof and didn't see anybody anywhere. Then they heard someone come up behind them, causing shivers to run up their spines as they turned around to confront him.

"Hey, guys, what are you doing up here?" Ed asked inquisitively.

"Ed! What in Sam Hill are you doing? You startled us."

"O nothing much. Just here to see your Digimon battle!"

"Okay, who spilled the beans on the Digimon?" Chaun asked.

"He seems to have figured it out on his own, probably because we were talking about it in the middle of class."

"Oh yeah." Chaun rolled his eyes. "Dude, you can't be up here, Ed. It's dangerous."

"But Ed wants a Digimon too! Look here, I drew my very own Digimon." Ed pulled out a very poor drawing of a dinosaur that looked like Guilmon except with a metal helmet like Flairdramon. "See, I can't wait to slide it through the card reader and see it materialize. His name is Dinomon."

"Real original, Ed," Edd said, only a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice.  
"I remember when I made my own Digimon that had that exact same name," Chaun said matter of fact, no sarcasm whatsoever. Edd just looked at him.

But then Edd felt the top of his head get exposed to air. "What in the name of-?"

"Shut up and give me Kudamon, you nerdy wimp!" Someone interrupted. Daniel came out from behind an air-conditioning vent and Tsukaimon was hovering in front of him carrying Edd's hat. "Either that or your hat dies." He held a cigarette lighter up and threatened to ignite it.

By that time though, Edd's head was exposed and everyone saw it, every last burn-scarred tissue with sporadic pieces of hair sticking out. Edd realized that there was no turning back. He had to deal with everyone seeing his head here and now.

On the surface, the kids were watching the roof of the school and could clearly see Double-D's monstrosity of a head. "Dude, what happened?" one boy asked.

"He looks like Freddy Kreuger! with an oxygen mask" a girl yelled.

"Double D?" Eddy asked, surprised at his seeing his friend without a hat on.

On the roof, Daniel held out his purple and red digivice and slid a card, "Card Slash, Super Evolution Plug-in S!" He yelled and his Digimon glowed and changed shape until it was its terrifying adult form: Devidramon. "Try taking this, baldy!"

"Oh dear," Edd whispered to himself upon seeing his predicament.

"Don't worry dude! I got you covered," Chaun said, assuring his friend. "I see you can't evolve your Digimon without a card, huh, Danny?"

"Oh, I so hate how you call me that name, you stupid…!" A large semi drove by the school, honking and preventing anyone from hearing what Daniel just said.

"Dude, that was just low. Good thing the dubber censored it, you racial slur spouting white person!" He held out his digivice: "Okay, Wormmon! Time to evolve." Wormmon nodded and his transformation began.

**EVOLUTION_**

"Wormmon evolve!" The evolution was again very similar to ones used in Digimon Tamers, with Wormmon's skin peeling off against a dark green color scheme, revealing the glowing data underneath until a nebulous egglike structure enveloped him, and then dispersed, revealing his adult form: "Stingmon!"

"You still haven't gone to perfect, right?" Daniel asked. "Well, I have, you see, and if you're lucky enough, you'll get to see it."

"Dude, you couldn't even make a crest glow if you confined yourself to some sort of monastery for five years."

"Please. You don't need crests to evolve to perfect. I found a way to do it by hacking my digivice. I also heard that blue cards can do it as well, though it's a different type of evolution."

"Figures."

"So, what is causing your crest not to glow? You really a bad guy underneath it all?" The evil tamer laughed out loud. "Oh, well." He flicked his fingers, and the black four-eyed dragon next to him moved forward swiftly, pinning Stingmon to the ground. "Oh, yeah, that's right. You're Stingmon's Data-type variant. This makes it easier than I thought."

Chaun grimaced. "You know that proves I take care of my Digimon, unlike you! If you had raised that Tokomon right, you'd probably have an Angemon or something instead!"

Daniel grinned. "Now for baldy." He looked around but couldn't see him. "What? Where'd he go?"

Edd was running though the halls with Kudamon around his neck. _This is bad. I can't face anything like this! There's no way!_

Then he remembered standing up to Eddy after they pulled off the quicksand joke during their getaway the previous summer. Then there was the morning after, when he single handedly lectured Eddy's brother. And he remembered the horrific grin on the guy's face.

"What am I doing here? He's nowhere near as bad as that imbecile."

"What are you talking about?" Kudamon asked.

"Last summer, I ran into my friend Eddy's brother and stood up to him. Daniel is nothing compared to him." Edd looked behind him. "I'm going back up there!"

"But, Edward, you don't have a digivice."

"I don't care. Why are you running from him anyway?"

"I'm one of the last of a group called the Royal Knights. We were exterminated during the days of the Metal Empire and when the New Empire came in, we thought we were safe until the Alias Three started hunting us down."

"The Alias Three?" Edd asked while walking back toward the stairs.

"Daniel is one of them. They are three tamers who can evolve to perfect. They also work directly for the Emperor, who is himself a tamer. The Emperor's Digimon can evolve to Mega, something we haven't been able to understand."

"Sounds like quite the mess you got yourselves into."

"It is." By then, Edd was running as fast as he could, trying to ignore his exhaustion. By the time he reached the hatch, he had just about run out of strength.

_What are you doing! Chaun and Stingmon are counting on you._ He pushed himself further, climbing up the ladder. Halfway up, he saw a white glow in the air, and grabbed it.

"A digivice!" His digivice was red and silver. He also felt a surge throughout his body. It was exhilarating and gave him the energy needed to climb up and confront his opponent.

"Daniel!" Edd said, coming out of his hatch.

"Oh, good, you came just in time to see your hat turn to ashes." Edd's hat was there in front of the blond tamer, engulfed in flames. "Oh, well, it seems you had a wig in your locker, you shaggy haired…" Some jets flew overhead, blocking out the next word.

"Huh." Edd felt his head and realized it was full of hair.

"Now seriously, you look like one of the Jonas Brothers on a bad hair day! How did you get that gap in your teeth taken care of? Plastic?"

_It seems that getting a digivice can cause the tamer to heal from an ailment or physical defects. Intriguing. Wait, how come Chaun isn't confronting Daniel?_ He turned around to see Ed holding back Chaun, all red-eyed and angry, trying to get free with no avail. "Ed! What are you doing? He's on our side!"

"Sorry, the villain told me that he would destroy my comic book collection if I didn't do this. Besides, evil is just so cool!"

_Of course, you lovable oaf. I hope that digivices cure mental ailments too._ Edd turned toward his opponent and held out his digivice and Kudamon jumped forward, ready to take on the dragon in between the two of them that winning against the giant insect.

**EVOLUTION_**

"Kudamon evolve!" Kudamon's color scheme was white and gold, and his skin peeled open and he evolved inside a white cloud into the fox-like Digimon "Reppamon!"

"Oh my."

"That's so cool!" Ed screamed, letting go of Chaun.

"Woah!" Chaun gasped as he fell out of Ed's grasp.

"Shinkuu Kamaitachi [Vacuum Razor Wind]!" the digimon shouted, shaking his tail and causing invisible blades to come forth, tearing up the enemy Digimon.

"Great! We need to evolve to perfect, now!" the Digimon's tamer yelled. His digivice glowed for a second, but then faded. "Oh, no!"

"Finish him, Reppamon!" The Digimon ran forward and then rolled toward the enemy.

"Kurukuru Rekku Zan [Whirling Blade]!" Reppamon struck the enemy, knocking him off Stingmon, who stood up to get ready to strike. Then, Devidramon devolved back to Tsukaimon and just laid there.

"We won!" Edd exclaimed, surprised.

Daniel was surprised, too. "I lost!" Then he regained his composure and walked over to Tsukaimon, picking him up. He turned to the others and warned. "Don't think this is over. There are two other Aliases. They're both stronger than me. If you even manage to defeat them, you'll still have to deal with the Emperor himself and he can evolve his Digimon to Mega. To this day even we have no idea how."

"Then I guess we'll have to develop strategies to deal with him too. I'm sure we can do it."

"Hehehehe, I doubt it. You have a long way to go!" He pulled a small spherical device out of his pocket, and threw it behind him, creating a circular gateway to the digital world: a space-time oscillation bomb. "See you later, suckers!" He jumped into it, his Digimon in his arms. Then the gate closed.

"Man, this is so weird," Chaun commented. "I guess that means they can come and go as they please. Sounds like we've got a long road ahead of us."

Edd nodded. "But, if they can cross over, then how come your friends haven't come over themselves?"

Chaun shrugged. "Maybe you have to be with the enemy to come over here."

Back in the digital world, Daniel settled back into his dark and sparsely decorated room, to put it lightly. Then again, how could they have that much stuff? They were in the digital world and far away from most of what they knew. Unfortunately for Daniel, he had to let his Digimon rest in the medical area for awhile before he would be ready again. "Hiya, Danny. I hear you got your butt handed to you," a girl said, walking into his room.

"Whatever happened to just knocking?" he asked. At this point, the girl's jeans could be seen, but nothing else.

"I can come in whenever I feel like it! Is little Danny a bit down?"

"I almost had my Digimon deleted and I couldn't even get my Digimon to Perfect."

"Good thing my Digimon's already at the adult level." Her Digimon, BlackTailmon appeared behind her. "It's just a matter of evolving her and then I'll sweep the floor with everyone! Nobody can evolve to perfect, right?"

"According to my data, there were a number of tamers in the area, at least, and that doesn't include any who has their digivice in stealth mode. The two I encountered couldn't get past Adult, and according to my data gotten on the others, none of them can get to Perfect either."

"Hmm… Was my cousin there?"

"Oh, yeah? Why?"

"I think I'll just take a special trip over there to, you know, visit family." Then the girl walked out into the sunlight leaking into the room to reveal her face. She had red curly hair that covered her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll come back."

"I know you will, Lee." The girl giggled. "Just don't cause too much damage, okay?"

"I won't. I also have to visit my boyfriend! I'm sure he misses me."

_I wouldn't if I were him,_ he thought to himself as she walked out.

For the rest of the day, Edd had girls commenting on his hair and asking him why he constantly wore a hat up to that point. Nobody knew that either he or Chaun had been up there though they knew that Ed was there and people asked him about it, even though he would just give weird off the wall answers. Ultimately, the school thought that the battle was a giant publicity stunt of sorts and decided to forget about it since it involved things that were pretty much impossible and that only happened in imported Japanese animes. Even the fact that they were Digimon was something hotly contested and some of the kids thought they were Yu-gi-oh! monsters.

But it was all on the news and someone at the university noticed it. He also called Kevin, but he wouldn't answer. Still this worried him that these other tamers were coming into the real world. What if they attempted to take it over? Of course, he had plans for that, but they shouldn't execute them until a long way off.

For now he had to just wait and hope that his agents in the Digital World get done what they needed to.

Then the next phase of his plan would be ready.

Next Chapter: The Fourth Kanker

A/N: Yeah. Lee comes back. I figured that I'd let her. She's the second of three villains: the third is a Goth with Impmon as a partner. BTW, I haven't made up any Digimon, and I don't plan on making up Impmon's Adult and Perfect forms either. They existed as cards… Seriously. The only one I plan on making up is Wormmon's Mega/Final form. I also made Stingmon the Data-type variant since his Perfect form is officially a Vaccine-type.

By the way, if you haven't noticed, I've used the Japanese names for almost everyone and for levels except for Mega (which sounds cooler, in my opinion, heh.)

Anyway, continue using that Digimon Wiki. You'll need it. Also, more reviews will be appreciated. If you subscribe, you will be asked (nicely) to review.


	4. Lee's Return

Chapter 4: The Fourth Kanker. Lee's Return

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digmon. Just own all the OCs. Heck, none of the Digimon so far are even mine.

* * *

The snow was completely melted as spring finally set in and the swimming hole's water was cool and calm, at least until a giant sea snake came up out of it. "Okay, boys, lets take this thing out before anybody else finds out about it, okay?" Eddy said, standing at the edge of the swimming hole where the Digimon, a Seadramon emerged. He held out his digivice and Commadramon went through his evolution sequence to Sealsdramon.

"Oh, yeah!" The others yelled. Edd was wearing his hat again, despite the embarrassing secret no longer being there and despite having more hair, particularly a tuft in the front above the center of his forehead. Ed was just there to cheer the others on, despite not having a Digimon.

Sealsdramon yelled as he ran, first on land, then across the water which he didn't sink in due to his speed, and then he jumped on top of Seadramon, yelled out "Death Behind!" and stabbed the giant sea snake in the back, causing it to writhe in pain.

After that, Edd evolved his Digimon to Reppamon, who proceeded to yell out "Shinkuu Kamaitachi" and attack Seadramon with invisible wind blades from his tail, effectively disintegrating the monster who after a moment reverted back to an egg. Sealsdramon caught it before it dropped into the water.

In the end Eddy had the egg and the two Digimon were devolved. "I want this guy to be my partner, Eddy!" Ed exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah! Once we talk to Kevin about it, he's gonna be yours alright!" Eddy said.

Then Edd commented. "Yes, it's good that Kevin decided to cut off ties with that shady scientist at the university so that we can build a force of Tamers, though I bet he'll be receiving phone calls from him asking what on earth he's doing."

"Yeah, really. It sucks to be him. Good thing we're ready for whatever comes our way, right boys?" Eddy asked.

"Yeah!" The three of them say in unison. It's about this time that Robert and Terriermon walk into the clearing.

"Hey, Robert, you missed the party. What happened?" Eddy teased.

"Oh, nothing. I was just cleaning the kitchen and I didn't notice that there was an emergence point close by since I accidentally left my digivice in my room. Terriermon came and got me just in time. Sorry about that."

"Eh, that Seadramon was nothing," Eddy said. "Believe me, you didn't miss much. So, how about we get back to the cul-de-sac and celebrate?"

* * *

"Wait, what do you mean Rolf gets him?" Eddy asked, furious. They were at Kevin's house, standing around the dining room.

"Dude, Rolf was next in line to get a Digimon. It's how I planned it from the beginning, choosing the most responsible kids first," Kevin said. "Don't worry, Ed's next."  
"So cool! I hope I get Justimon, or Gallantmon or even MaloMyotismon!"

"Wow, those'll be hard to get," Eddy commented.

"Doesn't he know everyone mainly uses names taken from the original Japanese?" Robert asked, a sweatdrop forming on his head.

"Apparently not," Edd replied, embarrassed because of his friend's cluelessness.

Then the phone rang. "Great, it's probably him," Kevin grumbled, talking about the professor at the nearby university. "That guy's been trying to get a hold of me the past few days. Let me go answer it so I can get rid of him. Rolf'll be here in a few minutes to pick up the egg. I just hope the professor buys my idea about getting a larger group with Digimon to defeat Perfect level opponents." Kevin proceeded to walk into the other room to do that while the others hung out.

"So, where's Terriermon?" Eddy asked.

"Well, he went back to make sure all my stuff is guarded just in case. My relations with my aunt have been strained lately and I'm afraid I might not be staying there much longer." Robert looked afraid of what might happen.

"Why, what's going on if you don't mind me asking?" Edd inquired.

"Not much. It's just that my aunt criticizes every single minute detail of what I do. I get everything done right, even down to cleaning the room I'm sleeping in, but she still finds something wrong."

"Are you considering going back to Colorado?"

"Maybe. I'm afraid of talking to my friend's dad after what happened in the digital world last summer, but I might just have to do that. After living with my aunt for so long, I understand why my mom didn't have anything to do with her family. They're insane."

"Well, we could only imagine how much worse it could be."

"He could be related to the Kankers," Eddy suggested.

Robert shuddered.

Then their digivices vibrated. "Huh? That's odd," Edd commented. "Why are there two emergences in the real world in such a short time?" They all flipped open their digivices to try to find the source but it wasn't there any more.

"Talk about weird. What the heck is going on?" Eddy asked.

"Maybe another tamer has emerged and decided to keep secret. If that's the case, we may have to deal with one of the Alias soon," Edd warned.

"This so cool guys. We might have a villain to fight." Ed said gleefully.

Robert objected. "How is that cool? I'd rather have no villains and live an ordinary life. It would be fine by me."

"What's the fun in that? Anyway, Kevin might have us deal with whoever this is. Or he might go after him himself," Eddy said. "Either way, I'm game."

"The problem is that we don't who this tamer is and therefore don't know what level his Digimon is," Edd stated.

"Oh, well, we'll beat him anyway, right Ed?"

"You bet, Eddy!" Ed exclaimed.

* * *

Terriermon was busy packing things up for Robert just in case something happened. They had the fear of either being kicked out which was imminent or, even worse, having one of Robert's cousins coming back.

Then his fears were made real when the door to the room cracked open and he sprinted under the bed to hide. BlackTailmon entered along with her human partner: Lee. "Wow, he definitely ruined the place! What a sleazebag!"

"I smell something," BlackTailmon said, looking around the room. "You know, it's bad enough that we came to the Human World without the Emperor's approval, but coming home? You really have it coming for you when we get back."

"Whoever said we were going back? That emperor can't stop us!"

"But _he_'s here. I can smell him everywhere. Not to mention everything in the bathroom like the toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, and expensive high-quality cologne. The place stinks because of him."

"I agree with you on that one. Make yourself at home while I go greet my boyfriend. He needs it after all this time."

"No, I'm going with you. I thought Zack was your boyfriend."

"Can't they both be? Besides, I got these nice pictures of Zack in the showers. Hehehe." She walked out of the room.

"I still think this place smells like crap," BlackTailmon said, before following her tamer out.

Terriermon knew this was the only chance he had. He needed to get the suitcase and the toiletries out before the two enemies find him and get it all to the rendezvous point.

* * *

Eddy re-entered his room with Commandramon to check some stuff when he found something startling. "Hiya, Eddy!" Lee yelled as she jumped on top of him. "How have you been? I see you've gotten a little taller! And you have hair!"

"Oh, crap! Kanker! Kanker! Kanker!" He yelled out as loud as he could, hoping someone could hear him, but everyone was still over at Kevin's.

"Now can I shoot this human? It is clearly a danger to you," Commandramon asked.

"Yes! Please do! NOW!" But before Commandramon could do anything, he was kicked by BlackTailmon against the wall and knocked unconscious.

"You and I are going to have a fun time, Eddy!" Eddy looked at his unwanted paramour in sheer terror as she drug him out the back door.

* * *

"Dude, where's Eddy?" Kevin inquired coming back into the room. The others looked at each other puzzled.

"This is rather odd," commented Edd. "He said he was going to go get his box of cards from under his bed and bring it here as quickly as he could. How peculiar. It's been fifteen minutes."

"No kidding. So, how did the call to our favorite shady professor go?" Robert asked.

"He seemed fine with my proposal to enlarge our party as long as it didn't end up with more than ten people in it. I told him about how we were probably gonna deal with perfect level Digimon real soon though and he agreed with my plan. Don't worry, Robert, I didn't tell him about you."

"I'm not worried." Robert picked up his digivice and checked for Eddy's signal. "According to this, he's still at his house in his room. I'd say we gotta go check on him."

"I agree," Edd said.

"Alright, I'll get Nazz to come with us in case something's up," Kevin said, walking out the door.

* * *

"Commandramon, Commandramon!" Edd said, shaking the Digimon to try to wake him up. "It's no use, he's out cold."  
"From the looks of it, there are signs of forced entry. The door was clearly knocked open and there are marks from human fingernails on the ground implying that he was dragged out of here. It's obvious that he also didn't get what he came here to get," Ed observed.

"Quite the analysis."

"I didn't know he had it in him," Robert said surprised, picking up Eddy's digivice.

"This is so cool! A kidnapping close to home!" Ed cheered.

"I take back what I said."

Edd reached down under the bed to find the box with the cards and pictures in it. "I found his box. Apparently the kidnapper didn't steal it."

"That could only mean one thing: the kidnapper, whoever he or she is, was after Eddy."

Edd had an epiphany. "Oh, no! What if the Kanker sister's came back?"

Robert trembled at Edd's suggestion. "Oh man, that would really suck!"

"Wait, so you know them?" Robert was startled by Edd's deduction. Then Kevin and Nazz walked into the room.

"So, what's happening, now?" Kevin asked.

"We think that maybe the Kanker sisters are back, and that Lee drug Eddy out of his room over to her trailer."

"Dude, what's his problem," asked Nazz, pointing to Robert who had a frightened look on his face, sweating profusely.

"He apparently knows the Kankers," Edd said.

"Actually, except for Lee, I only met them once," Robert said, turned around, his face red. "It was at my grandmother's funeral."

"Wait, what the heck were they doing there?" Kevin asked.

Robert looked around nervously, obviously thinking of what his words should be. "Here's the thing, everything you have against my family is completely justified. The Kankers are my cousins. Please, I beg of you, don't hold them being my cousins against me."

Everyone in the room stood there in shock at Robert's statement.

"You mean all this time you were the Kanker's cousin and you were living in the trailer park?" Edd asked.

"Yeah." Robert slammed his mouth completely shut.

"And you couldn't tell us?" Kevin asked and Robert shook his head. "Dude, I wouldn't admit to having them as relatives either. That would really suck!"

"Like totally dude. Hey, look at what I found on Eddy's dresser!" Nazz exclaimed, showing everyone the tag and crest and making them all instantly forget Robert's disturbing blood relation.

"So cool! That's the Digimon Emperor's crest. Somehow Eddy found a tag for it so that he can digivolve his Digimon to Ultimate," Ed said.

"How the heck did Eddy of all people get a crest?" Kevin asked. "Dude, he didn't even go to the digital world."

"Maybe these pictures at the bottom of Eddy's box can tell us," Edd suggested. "This one in particular shows Eddy's brother with a crest around his neck. And this shows him with four other people."

Nazz started to ask: "Dude, is that…"

"Chaun's brother Chuck!" Kevin exclaimed.

"Um, it looks like it. From the looks of this picture, Eddy's brother may have been a member of a group of tamers who went to the digital world years ago."

"Dude, that's so cool!" Nazz commented, "Too bad Eddy's brother's a total jerk."

"Exactly. It seems that Eddy's crest must have come from that mission to the digital world. This means that the other four might have crests too."

"Oh, man, this means we might all be able to evolve to perfect sooner than we think," Kevin said, "But seriously, how the heck did Eddy's bro get the Crest of Kindness?"

"Ken wasn't kind but he got that crest," Ed said.

"Which means that Eddy's brother had to have developed that quality at one point in order to fight whatever evil they went up against," Edd deduced. "This is so intriguing. I can't wait to see where this ends up."

"Hey, Robert, did you find any crests while you were in the digital world?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah. I got this one," he pulled out his gold-colored tag and crest and showed it to the others.

"The Crest of Destiny," Ed said. "Willis had the digi-egg in the movie."

"I know. I can't seem to get it to work though. Anyway, don't you think we should go get Eddy?"

"Dude, we need to go get him right away! Who knows what Lee'll do with him," Nazz said as they all scrambled out.

* * *

Eddy was tied up on his hands and feet, in his underwear, and being completely humiliated. "This is so not funny! My friends'll get you, you know!"

"Oh, please, when none of you can evolve your Digimon to the Perfect level. You know they won't be able to keep the two of us apart! Then you'll be my boyfriend forever."

"Dude, with way you girls treat us on this show, it's no wonder there's so much slash on the internet."

"And I wrote half of it about you and the boy I met in the digital world. You want to see what he looks like. I have pictures with me on his I-pod touch."

"You stole that from him?"

"Yeah, took it from his suitcase just before he went on his mission that he hasn't come back from yet. Oh, I can't wait to see him again."

"Don't you get it? He probably left because of you!"

"Still, that doesn't mean he won't come back. Besides, now that I got you, I can have two husbands!"

_Man, I hope my friends find out that I'm here soon._ It was that very moment that they heard a knock on the door.

"I'll go get it, honey!"

She opens the door to find most of the kids from the cul-de-sac with their adult-level Digimon except Galgomon surrounding the trailer. Ed was holding Commandramon for the moment the lizard wakes up. "Ooh. Honey, your friends are here for a party!"

"Just hand over Eddy and leave us alone, and we'll let you be," Robert said at the front of the group, right in front of Lee.

"What's the fun in that? By the way, where's your Digimon? He was so cute." Lee knew that this would be easy since Terriermon wasn't around.

"I'm not kidding around, girl," Robert stood his ground. He knew how to deal with people he didn't like from experience.

"Well, I am. BlackTailmon!" Her Digimon showed up behind her.

"You want me to beat the crap out of these losers?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah." She held out her orange and red digivice and yelled out "Hacked Evolution!"

**HACKED SUPER EVOLUTION**

"BlackTailmon Super Evolve!" Her evolution sequence started out as a dark version of Tailmon's evolution to Perfect, and ended up with her getting a black mask instead of a helmet. She was also completely black herself, with a disturbingly sinister appearance and a bizarre face above her left shoulder. "LadyDevimon!"

"Show them how it's done!" Lee said, stepping out of the trailer and shutting the door behind her.

"My pleasure."

The kids looked on in shock. "A Perfect level! Everyone try to defeat this thing now!" Kevin yelled out as the three adult level Digimon: Growlmon, Togemon and Reppamon jumped at the black Digimon, each using various attacks: Growlmon used Plasma Blade, Togemon tried to jab it and Reppamon attempted to use _Kurukuru Rekku Zan _or Whirling blade. She dodged all three of them. Below, Nazz snuck around the trailer and through a window.

"Hey, dude, I'm like here to rescue you," Nazz said upon getting in. She used a knife Kevin gave her to cut off the rope that was tying Eddy's hands and legs and preventing him from leaving. He put his clothes on and then grabbed the iPod Touch that was on the table, which had Zack G. written on the back of it in permanent marker and put it in his pocket. "Dude, what are you taking that for?"

"It isn't hers and it belongs to some guy that she tortured just like me while she was in the digital world. I figured I'd help him out and get it back to him when we got there."

"Oh, okay dude. Ready to get out?"

"Boy, am I ever?" The two of them then climbed out the window and ran around to the other side. "Commandramon!" Eddy yelled, seeing his Digimon knocked out.

The Digimon grumbled a bit as it regained consciousness. "Does anybody have my digivice?" he asked and Kevin tossed it to him.

"Oh, no! How the heck did you get out?" Lee exclaimed.

"My friends came and got me. Time to evolve, Commandramon!"

"Commandramon evolve!" the Digimon yelled as it went through its evolution sequence into the larger Sealsdramon, yelling its name.

"Sealsdramon, use Scouter Monoeye!"

"Got it!" Using one of its cybernetic eyes, it scanned for a weak point. "Everyone, attack that apparition on her shoulders!" it yelled, having everyone attack at once, Growlmon used Exhaust Flame, Togemon used _Chiku Chiku Bang Bang, _an attack using her needles_,_ and Reppamon used Shinkuu Kamaitachi, the vacuum razor wind, but each of them were deflected by LadyDevimon using Evil Wing to gobble up the attacks.

"Dang it!" Eddy yelled.

"Don't worry, dude, we're doing good. Hey, at least we got you out of there," Nazz cheered him on.

Then Terriermon finally arrived on the scene. "Sorry, I'm late."

"No, you're just in time, Terriermon. Time to use that trick against Lee like we did last time."

Terriermon nodded as Robert took out a card.

Card Slash Sequence: The card spun in mid-air as Robert grabbed it from the bottom and slid it through his digivice vertically. "Card Slash!" He looked at the card: "Digimental of Destiny!"

**ARMOR EVOLUTION**

The Crest of Destiny appeared in the middle of the sequence, with the digimental on one side and Terriermon on the other side. "Terriermon, Armor Evolve!" Then both Terriermon and the digimental started spinning and combined together in the middle, armor forming on Terriermon and turning him into "Rapidmon!"

"What the heck?" Eddy was surprised. "Since when could you do that?"

"Um, since we found the card in the digital world," Robert explained. "My friend who's stuck there collected the card packs like crazy. He gave me this one because he knew I could use it."

"Is that the same friend whose Digimon could Jogress with Stingmon?" Edd asked.

"Yeah. That's the one. One of these days he's gonna come back. Get her with all you got, Rapidmon! Aim for her second face!"

"Got it!" Rapidmon then yelled out "Atomic Blast!" launching missles from the launcher on his back.

"Oh, please, I already know what's happening. Evil Wing!" LadyDevimon uses the same bat attack like before. Then she gets struck from behind on her shoulder face. "Ugh!"

"Did you forget about us?" Togemon yelled, obviously she was the one who launched the attack from behind the trailer.

"Exhaust flame!" Growlmon yelled, attacking LadyDevimon at close range. Then the unexpected happens, another Digimon appears. This one was far more sinister and demonic in appearance, looking like something out of Goethe's Faust.

"What the-? Where'd he come from?" Eddy asked.

"Phelesmon. He's another Perfect level!" Edd said confused, looking at his flipped open digivice.

"Phallusmon?" Eddy asked.

"Ha ha, Eddy. Somehow I knew you were going to make a base joke like that."

"What are you talking about?"

Of course, even Lee was terrified at the sight of the new Digimon. It startled her even more when she heard a monotone voice behind her to her left. "Hello Lee."  
She turned around to see a hardcore Goth guy with black eyeliner, black lipstick, eyebrow piercings, a choker on his neck and, of course, all black leather clothes. "We are all very disappointed in you, you know. I know that visiting family is important but you can't go home out of the blue at such a crucial time." All in all, despite the piercings, the Goth guy looked somewhat familiar to everyone there. Obviously he was older than everyone else and extremely soft-spoken but Lee seemed to respect and fear him. Not to mention the Digimon. "Now, let us devolve our Digimon and head home."

"But they might attack us, Damien."

"Don't worry, they won't attack us."

"You know, I always knew Goths worshiped Satan, but having a Digimon like that! Don't you think that's a little too far?" Eddy commented, not caring to watch his big mouth. He received a glare from the Goth.

"I'm sorry, but I find your use of stereotypes offensive, Edward. You might want to work on watching your tongue," Damien said in an even emotionless tone.

"Can I get my stuff?" Lee asked.

"Certainly."

"Can I call my mom?" She asked walking in.

"Go ahead." The two Digimon devolved back into BlackTailmon and Impmon respectively and both joined their partners. Damien talked to the others. "I would suggest going away. We'll be gone soon anyway, so you don't have to worry about us attacking you. I look forward to the time we will take you on with all three of our perfect level Digimon. The monster of the week thing is soooo boring." The guy's stare made everyone shudder.

"By the way, Robert!" Lee yelled out her door, "Don't bother coming back. Mom's gonna be so ticked when she finds out that the two of us got into a fight." Shivers ran down Robert's spine as the group walked away.

* * *

"Man that was close. I'm not sure whether to call that a victory or a defeat," Kevin said. They were all sitting around at Eddy's living room.

Edd answered first: "I'd say that was a victory. First of all, we achieved our objective, then we got out alive and the enemy left."

"Dude, it's more like a draw. The enemy's still out there," Nazz answered.

"But with that reasoning, we could call the battle last Wednesday a draw. Daniel and Tsukaimon are still out there."

Then Eddy replied: "I say: who cares. Is it just me or did that Goth guy look familiar. I mean, I don't recognize the name but seriously."

"I agree," Robert said, "Then there's the question of what I'm going to do tonight. Now I'm a ward of the state. Knowing them, they'll probably ship me off to some orphanage or something."

"Eh, you can stay here. I've got an extra room upstairs that used to belong to my brother," Eddy responded, "Just don't touch anything."

"You sure?"

"Come on, man, I'm offering you free rent."

"Okay, but I'll have to do some of the chores and help out around here."

"Now's the question of how to get back your luggage," Edd reminded them.

"Oh, Terriermon put them somewhere in the junkyard. He was prepared. So, Eddy, are you gonna call your parents and ask?"

"Yeah, sure, I'll get right on it!" Eddy said, getting up and going into the kitchen to grab a cordless phone. He was happy to occasionally have a large group over, something that wouldn't have happened before last summer. He picked up the phone and dialed his dad's number. His dad turned out to be okay with it as long as he met Robert when he got home. That was a relief.

After hanging up, Eddy realized he still had the iPod Touch in his pocket. He pulled it out and started messing around with it. As he expected, it wasn't password protected. The screen was also a bit scratched in spots which wasn't a surprise. He looked at some the apps: AnkiMobile, Safari, Various Foreign Language Dictionaries, Webster's Dictionary, and he thought about how lame the guy was until he ran across YouTube. That sounded like fun. Next he made his way to the photos, and couldn't figure out any rhyme or reason behind half the albums, since they used terms he wasn't familiar with or that were used in ways he wasn't familiar with. Some of the names showed up often. He randomly clicked on an album titled 'School Pics', and opened it.

The first picture was one of Daniel and the sixth was one of Robert. He didn't recognize anyone else there, though he thought one of the pics: the third pic, looked just like the girl he saw in the dream. Then there was pic eight, who looked just like he did now.

He shuddered as he exited the album.

Now, he just wanted to know what Zack did to get something awesome like this. Not that he wasn't going to return it, mind you.

After that, he found the folder marked 'Nakid Piks of Zakk' and deleted it.

* * *

"Hey, so Zack's your friend who's in the digital world, right?" Eddy asked a little later on while the two of them were watching TV.

"Yeah. Why."

"Uh, it seems like he had to deal with some of the same crap with Lee like I did."

"Oh, man. During our first battle with her, she hit on him the whole time. It was really embarrassing."

"Then again, I can't imagine how embarrassing it is for you to be related to her. Man, that would suck."

"Yeah, it would. During the reception dinner after my grandmother's funeral, my cousins ambushed me, stripped me naked, and dangled me out the second story window for everyone to see. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I was eight. Now you can imagine why my mom cut off all ties with her family after that."

"Heck, yeah, I would."

* * *

Somewhere in the digital world a battle was waged between BlackWarGreymon, a black dragon-man with heavy armor, and MetalGarurumon, a cybernetic wolf. The Battle was over a small yellow Digimon with large ears that was in the arms of MetalGarurumon's tamer. He realized the need to get out as soon as he could, so he ran into the gate room, and set up some charges. Soon, MetalGarurumon staggered in and devolved back into Gabumon, running to his tamer, who turned on the gate.

"You think you're going to get away that easily?" BlackWarGreymon asked in a dark and broody voice, walking into the room.

The tamer smiled, though due to the lighting, only his silhouette could be seen. The gate turned on and the tamer and Digimon fell backwards into it. As the enemy moved toward it, the gate exploded, causing the dragon-man to fly upward as soon as he could, even breaking though the ceiling in order to escape the blast.

_As soon as we fix this gate, you're going to be history, Eric, and the key to finding the key to dominion in this world will finally be in our hands._ BlackWarGreymon's tamer thought, unseen.

* * *

Next: Eric and Rachelle

A/N: If you look closely in 'Run for your Eds' and 'A twist of Ed', you can see that the Kankers have a nice sized window in their room. I'd say that Terriermon could push his giant suitcase out if he wanted to.

The next chapter involves Nazz. She doesn't get enough screen time and I feel like fleshing out her character a bit.


	5. Eric and Rachelle

Chapter 5: Eric and Rachelle

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon.

* * *

The three refugees found themselves in a large stadium. They made it out of the Digital World and out of the reach of the Emperor, and before doing that, they did something that would stunt the Emperor's interests in the real world: they destroyed the gate that they went through.

Now, though, it was time to go back home to Peach Creek, to try to find that group of Tamers that are said to have subverted the Emperors attempts on numerous occasions.

They just needed to get there.

* * *

The past two weeks since the incident with Lee coming back have been incredibly boring. First, there was school, school, and more school. Eddy's grades were steadily improving due to help from Robert, but that didn't matter much to Eddy. True, it was nice to be able to review problems from older assignments via computerized flashcards, which caused him to ace the last math test, but the process was unbelievably boring. He didn't even know how Robert could stand the stuff.

"All done," Roberts confirmation was music to Eddy's ears. He shut down his laptop and put it in his bag. The two of them were in Eddy's brother's room, which looked the same except for the lack of a car, Robert's giant green suitcase and the fridge-bed being open.

"How many cards did we do today?" Eddy asked.

"One hundred thirty-two. Pretty good considering how many we've imputed. I can tell you're extremely bored of it, though."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"I thought it was boring too when I first used it, so don't worry about it. It gets better."

"I doubt it," Eddy mumbled under his breath. Living with Robert was vastly different from just being friends with him. The other night, Eddy ended up getting into an argument over what to watch on TV with him for instance. Then there was that time when Robert was taking a shower at the same time he was and used up all the hot water. Other than that, it wasn't too terrible. Certainly not as bad as living with his brother. At least he had someone to share the doing of chores with.

Robert got up as soon as his digivice beeped. "Another realized Digimon. This time it's in Lemon Brook again."

"What? These past couple of weeks, it's only been in that area! Then by the time we get there, the Digimon is long gone because of the tamer over there that's stealing all our kills."

Robert nodded. "I agree. Though, this looks like it's a bit further out of the way. I'd say we go check it out regardless." Robert looked at his digivice again. "Also, the Digimon's a Perfect Level, so the tamer may need our help." Robert smiled at the notion. "Want to come? I'm sure Kevin is itching to go that way too."

Eddy followed him out the door.

* * *

Ed's room was cleaner than it had been. During the two days he had been away from home running from the others the previous summer, his parents managed to go into his room and completely empty it so that everything was gone from his sponge collection to his comics. Only some of his models remained. His parents had the nerve to paint it white, too, something that Ed decried. Sure, it was cleaner and he was getting cleaner since his dad thought it good to bath Ed himself, but that didn't mean he was happy about it.

While he and Edd were working on homework together and Kudamon was relaxing on his new bed, his mom came in and handed him the phone. She had blonde hair tied in a bun and was wearing an apron.

"Hello," Ed said gleefully into the phone.

"_Hey, Ed, guess what? It looks like we might have your partner today," _he heard Eddy tell him. He was ecstatic, jumping into the air.

"Yay! I finally get a Digimon!" he yelled out. His mom had no idea what was going on.

* * *

When Nazz got home from softball practice, she knew something was up. There were a pair of size 13 tennis shoes near the front door and the TV was on. He was home. She did not know how and she did not know why, but there he was, in the living room, watching what sounded like a game of sorts. Then it switched to a Spanish Soap Opera. Then it Dora the Explorer. Nazz snuck into the room, and he wasn't there. "Huh?"

She looked behind her to see: "Hey, Nazz! How's it going?"

Nazz freaked out and yelled: "Dude! Don't do that!"

He was an adult, tall and fat, and like her had blond hair and blue eyes. His hair was kind of scruffy and he was wearing a blue shirt, some white shorts and glasses. Nazz was still surprised to see him.

"What are you doing here, anyway, Eric?"  
"Oh, I thought I'd stop by, stay a few days. Don't worry, I made sure I called mom beforehand."  
For the past few years, her brother had slowly become less a part of her life and more something in the distant background. The two of them never talked and he only called their mom every so often to tell her what's what.

"So, how's everyone? How's your friend Alisha?" He asked inquisitively, moving toward the couch.

"Dude, she moved away four years ago." The two of them sat down.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know."

"It's okay."

Eric thought for a second before his next question. "Who _do_ you hang out with these days?"

"There's Kevin, Rolf, Sarah, Jimmy, Ed, Double D, Eddy, Robert and a bunch of other people."

Eric didn't know who half those people were. "Isn't Eddy Derek's brother?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, no reason. I just wondered if he stopped worshiping him."

Nazz smiled. "Yeah, dude, he's really cool now. Last summer we ran into Derek and he tortured Eddy mercilessly. Man, he was a jerk. After that, nobody really mentions Eddy's brother."

Eric raised his head as if he were about to nod. About that time, Nazz asked another question.

"What brings you back here after so long? You haven't really been here since…" Nazz noticed Eric's face welling up with tears so she changed the subject. "So, like, I saw you in a picture with Eddy's brother and a few others. What did you guys do exactly?"

"Well, it's a long story."

"You went to the Digital World."

Eric's eyes widened. "Who told you guys?"

"We kind of figured it out when we found that picture in a box full of cards that also had a crest in it. My friends and I have actually been dealing with Digimon the last little bit."

Eric was speechless for a minute. "How long?"

"Some of us since last summer. Our friends Chaun and Robert have actually been to the Digital World and some are still there, like Jonny."

Eric thought about it another second. "Okay. What levels can your Digimon evolve to?"

"We've only been able to get to Adult."

"You're kidding." Eric got up and started to walk around, pondering how to say what he's going to say next. "The Emperor's Digimon is a Mega level. I can't even beat him when I get _my_ Digimon to Mega. Believe me, I tried. Even with the best tactics, you can only expect to make a slight dent in his armor while sustaining heavy casualties."

"So, how did you get to Mega?"  
He stopped pacing and looked at his sister. "Well, when I went to the Digital World last, I was able to get Gabumon to evolve to MetalGarurumon because I gave him a digicore from a sovereign. How the Emperor was able to do it is beyond me. His Digimon always evolved to Mega when I wasn't there to see it."

Nazz had a weird look on her face, her left eye twitching. "Dude, that's so weird."

"My thoughts are that he hacked his digivice somehow and wants to keep a monopoly on the leveling thing."

Just then, Nazz's digivice vibrated. She opened it to view the information on the Digimon. "Groundramon. Perfect Level. We should go check this out, dude."

"I'll come with you. Gabumon!" He called upstairs. The yellow lizard with white fur and a cone-like horn on his head came down.

"What's going on this time, Eric?" he said in a voice that sounded vaguely like Goofy to Nazz.

"We got a Digimon that emerged in the area. Want to take me and Nazz over to it?"

"Yeah, why not."

"Okay, time to Warp Evolve!"

* * *

Rachelle the brunette girl was busy doing some homework when her digivice vibrated and Renamon appeared.

"Ready?" The Digimon asked. Rachelle nodded. Then she opened her window and climbed out of it, her Digimon following. She asked herself why all the Digimon have been realizing close to her area constantly for the past few weeks. Then she shrugged it off. Her Digimon evolved to its Adult form, the large fox Kyuubimon, and she mounted it, holding onto the bars tied to the back of the Digimon's neck.

She had no idea what she was getting into.

* * *

"Okay, that's the realize point," Kevin commented as he and Chaun approached the digital field. Due to the warmer weather, Chaun was wearing a dark green jersey and some red gym shorts. The two of them put on their sunglasses but as they were walking up to the barrier, they heard the others arrive: Eddy, Robert, Commandramon and Rapidmon.

"How the heck did you guys get here so fast?" Eddy asked.

"Well, this card makes Wormmon able to fly," Chaun replied, holding up the card 'Digimental of Light.' "It's about the only use for armor evolution since Armors are weak except for Magnamon and Rapidmon and only a few Digimon can evolve that way."

"Weird. So are we gonna kick this thing's butt or what?"  
"We're going to try a different approach this time since some Digimon might simply be coming here to escape the Empire," Kevin explained. "Basically, try to reason. If that doesn't work, then attack it."

"Though a Perfect level coming to the real world on its own is a first. I wonder why it's happening," Robert mused. "I wonder if the original team had to deal with monsters in the real world."

"I talked to my bro the other night. He said they didn't." Chaun said, going through the mist, followed by Robert and Eddy. Robert was smart enough to bring sunglasses but Eddy didn't.

Eddy had to constantly squint his eyes when he walked though the mist. It was weird that this didn't happen when he got his Digimon. Then again, the mist was starting to disperse at that time. Robert noticed Eddy squinting and gave him a pair of orange goggles from his jacket. "Thanks," Eddy said while putting them on.

"No problem." Then they reached the Digimon: a giant green dragon with metal jutting out of its forelegs, red spikes going down its back where the spine is along with red horns and claws where there used to be wings in its adult form. To top it off, the Digimon also had a morning star on the tip of its tail.

When they caught sight of the Digimon, Eddy heard growling from Commandramon. The Digimon that realized was growling as well, and started charging the tamers when it saw them. "What the heck, dude!" Kevin exclaimed, running out of the way. It was obvious what was happening, the Digimon was charging Commandramon.

"_Groundramon, Perfect Level, Earth Dragon Digimon. Its personality is extremely ferocious, and as most people lose their life when they encounter one, it is one Digimon for which the details of its ecology are not well understood,_" Robert read off his digivice, getting out of the way along with Rapidmon. Commandramon managed to jump on top of the dragon, running along its back. When Robert saw this, he yelled out "Get the heck off of there! One of his attacks is…" As Robert was about to finish his sentence, the arms on the back of the Digimon went down on the back, Commandramon barely getting out of the way. If Commandramon would have stayed, he surely would have been crushed.

"Okay, Commandramon! Evolve!" Eddy yelled out, out of the way of the giant dragon.

"Commandramon evolve… Sealsdramon!"

"You too, Guilmon," Kevin told his Digimon.

"Ditto, Wormmon," Chaun said. Both Digimon evolved to the forms of Growlmon and Stingmon respectively.

"Spiking Finish!" Stingmon yelled, attempting to attack the head with his arm blade. Unfortunately, the larger Digimon ended up hitting him with one of its large arms just as he was about to make his strike. The Perfect level Digimon was stronger than anything most of them fought before.

"Rapidmon!" Robert yelled.

"Okay, Robert!" The Digimon then launched missiles from its arms, aiming for the head. Unfortunately, the larger Digimon blocked again. The arm that he blocked with seemed to barely get damaged. Growlmon was attempting to use his fireball attack and Sealsdramon was scanning for a weakness. He found out the head was the weak spot but the Perfect level Digimon was constantly blocking. Despite its low speed on the ground, it had quick arms.

Then something else appeared as the fog dissipated. A fiery dragon came and attacked it in the head, damaging it slightly. Eddy looked behind him to see a familiar-looking brunette girl his age with her hair tied back in a pony-tail, the same one he saw nearly three weeks ago fighting a Chameleonmon with her Renamon. Her face was slightly startled at seeing Eddy. Eddy just smiled and said: "Wow, you do exist! My name's Eddy, by the way."

She was taken aback by his introduction. "I'm Rachelle." She turned away from Eddy and toward the enemy Digimon.

"Yeah? You were in the Digital World with Robert, Chaun, Zack and everyone else, right?"

"Yeah, I was." Eddy looked too similar to someone else for Rachelle. It didn't help that at one point Rachelle had a crush on the boy that he looks like. "Kyuubimon! Keep attacking! You're the only one with the speed to take this guy on other than Rapidmon!"  
"Huh?" Eddy was confused. If Rapidmon had such great speed, then why wasn't he using it? "Hey, Rapidmon! Do two attacks in a row, just switch locations or whatever!" he ordered. "What's the word… oh, change angels! Sealsdramon, do the same thing!"

"I think you mean angles, Eddy," Rachelle corrected him. She didn't look at him, though, since he made her uncomfortable. She realized he didn't fit the stereotype for good-looking with his weight and he was slightly heavier than the guy he reminded her of, but still. Then again, the guy he reminded her of was working to lose weight, while Eddy's actually been gaining mass along with height for the past three weeks. He was slightly taller than Edd now and finding clothes that fit him has been getting to be a bit of a problem.

Rapidmon attacked with such speed that he was barely able to be seen, moving to the left and attacking again, then he repeated the cycle, only moving down and to the right from his second position, shooting a number of missiles from the cartridge on his back. Sealsdramon moved in the opposite direction, throwing knives. Then the larger Digimon fell to the ground and disintegrated. When the others weren't moving to get the Digimon's data, Kyuubimon jumped forward and loaded it.

"What the heck did you just do!" Kevin demanded, walking forward to the girl. "We were going to let that turn back into an egg!"

The girl stood her ground. Despite shrinking back from Eddy due to his resemblance, she was tough. "Here's the thing: I don't have anything to do with the eggs so I have Renamon load the data."

"We were going to give that Digimon to someone as a partner."

"Oh, so you think that just giving everyone Digimon is a good idea? I seriously know of only a few people who would be responsible with one."

"That's what I'm doing: I'm making a team of Tamers who are responsible. I don't know who you are but this is not how we do things."

"Really? I don't recall _you_ making the rules." Everyone's Digimon devolved except for Kyuubimon, who walked up to her.

"Dude, I'm the leader. I make the rules."

"Oh, okay, fearless leader. Guess what? I'm not on your stupid team," Rachelle looked around at the others and recognized both Chaun and Robert. She felt kind of embarrassed since they were obviously a part of Kevin's troupe.

Robert, however, didn't seem to care and knew it was just a misunderstanding. "Hey, Rachelle, how's it going? This is Kevin, by the way."

Then Terriermon blurted out: "He thinks he's the leader but he's not."

"Terriermon!"

"What'd you say?" Kevin asked angrily.

"Seriously, who figured out the winning strategy?" Terriermon asked.

Kevin realized he had a point. In fact, it was starting to get obvious that the leadership role was slipping from Kevin into Eddy's hands. The sudden realization put Kevin down a few notches. _How did Eddy, someone with such bad luck all the sudden get good? Man, this makes no sense._ Kevin simply turned around and said to Guilmon: "Come on, man, let's go home."

"What's wrong, Kevin?" the Digimon asked, as clueless as ever.

"Nothing."

It was about that time that the group saw a cybernetic wolf head flying towards them, landing.

"Wow, it looks like we're a bit late for the party. Oh well, I wasn't in the mood for a fight anyway," one of the people on it said upon getting off. Most of the group didn't recognize him.

"Who the heck are you?" Eddy asked.

_Wow, that kid's really starting to look a lot like his brother. _"My name's Eric. I'm Nazz's brother."

"Yeah, dudes, he's going to be in town for a little bit," Nazz said. "He can evolve his Digimon to Mega."

"So, that means that whenever the Alias III comes back, we should be able to beat the crap out of them. Sweet!" Eddy exclaimed.

Eric took a deep breath. "Oh, man, you don't have to worry about them because when I was getting my butt out of the Digital World, I completely screwed them over by destroying their portal."

"Wait! How the heck did you get here then?"  
"I set charges to blow up just after I went in. It was easier than I expected and the Digimon that I fought against didn't make it here so I guess I was successful. Man, that was a tough fight. I so glad I made it here, though, 'cause things were getting pretty ridiculous over there."

"Hey, so you were one of the original Tamers, right?"

Eric nodded. "Oh yeah. Well, there was someone before us, but I guess the original team would be a good way to put it. Besides, when we got there, thousands of years passed or something and most of the information on him was long gone. We went through some ruins that mentioned him, though."

"So weird."

"Yeah, really."

"Man, I wonder who this first tamer really was. Then again, if it was thousands of years ago…" Chaun mused.

"Well, thousands of years in the Digital World. The flow of time there isn't always the same as here. Sometimes it's way faster, like when I first went to the Digital World six years ago."

"Wow, what makes it do that?" Chaun asked.

"You know, we haven't been able to figure that out. There are some really weird theories, but other than that, nothing."

"When I go to the Digital World, I'm going to find out how it works," Eddy declared. "Everybody with me?"

Everyone cheered except for Robert. _We're still not ready. Even with Eric on our side we wouldn't make it.

* * *

_

Jimmy and Sarah snuck into Nazz's house. They found it weird that she wasn't home since she said that she was going to help them with their homework. Then again, this was the girl who decided not to join the cheerleading team again this year for whatever reason. The kids looked around the house. "Are you sure we should be doing this?" Jimmy asked.

"Nazz did say that she was going to help us. It's her fault for not being home when she said she was going to be," Sarah insisted. The two of them had gotten a little taller, just a little. It had been almost two years since Nazz's sprinkler party where the Eds hogged the pool after all.

"I'll go check upstairs." Jimmy ran up the stairs, hoping to find something that told him where Nazz was. Sarah just plopped down on the couch and grabbed a remote control to turn on the TV.

"Okay, so since when does Nazz watch Dora the Explorer?" Sarah asked under her breath.

Upstairs, Jimmy checked Nazz's room to see that she wasn't there. When he went back through the hallway, though, he saw something out of the ordinary: one of the doors that weren't usually open was open. Jimmy peaked inside to find a small yellow rodent with large ears sleeping on the bed. "How cute!" he opened up the door and walked in.

* * *

Ed was crying. Before going off to fight Groundramon, Eddy had told him that the Digimon was going to be his partner. "There, there, don't worry," Eddy consoled him, "You'll get your partner someday."  
"No I won't! I'll be the one Ed without one."

Eddy didn't know how to respond to his friend. "Sooner or later, something's going to realize that's perfect for you. You'll have the best Digimon of us all."

Ed perked up a little bit. "You'll mean I'll get a ChaosGallantmon?"

"Don't push it."

* * *

When Rachelle got home, she plopped on her fluffy yellow full-sized bed. "Do you think I had you do the right thing, Renamon?" she asked.

"I don't think you did anything wrong. You didn't know that what you were doing was going to provoke Kevin."

"That's true. I think I should send him an apology anyway though and tell him to let me know if they need any help."

"That would be a good idea."

Rachelle pulled out her digivice and started typing in the apology. While she was typing it in, she glanced at a couple of pictures: one from when she was four years old with a boy who had brown hair and was slightly heavy and the other one with Eddy's lookalike at school, smirking. They were wearing green school uniforms.

* * *

When Kevin got home, he immediately went to his room. Since the encounter with Lee and the other Alias Damien, he's been working on a strategy against the three of them at once. Using information he got from Chaun and Robert about Tsukaimon's perfect form along with the internet, he's been working to try to figure out who would be best against each enemy. He hadn't been making progress.

Until now.

The realization that his days as leader of this team may be close to over struck him and made him want to work on this strategy. Knowing about Rachelle and receiving her message made him incorporate her into his plans. The plans were this: Eddy, Rolf and Kevin versus Daniel; Nazz, Rachelle and Ed versus Lee; and Chaun, Robert and Edd versus Damien. Eric was going to be the backup. The intent was to balance the teams out and have the most qualified tamers go after the one that they knew the least about. There were also the emotional ties; something that Kevin knew would get in the way if Eddy and Robert went against Lee. Lee would probably freak Eddy out so his judgment would be clouded and Robert would probably allow his anger to get in the way, not that there was much there to begin with.

That and Kevin didn't want Robert in the same group as him after what Terriermon said.

* * *

When Nazz and Eric got back home they found Sarah on the couch asleep, the TV on Cartoon Network. "Sarah?" Nazz said, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder to try to wake her up.

"Nazz?" The girl stretched out, and said. "You're still going to help with my homework, right?"

"Yeah, dude. Sorry I wasn't home earlier. My brother just got into town and I had to go do something with him."

"Your brother?" Nazz pointed to the tall, heavy guy with glasses walking up the stairs. The Digimon had already gone up there and were in Nazz's room.

"How do you like having Nazz as a partner?" he heard Gabumon ask.

"She's a lot of fun."

"So is mine. We've been together a long time." Eric smiled upon hearing that. Then he went into his room to see Patamon playing a board game with some pail blond kid.

"Huh?" Jimmy looked up at him. "Who are you?"

He was startled that Jimmy had found Patamon, though at least they were getting along. "Eric, Nazz's brother. You're Jimmy, I take it?"

"Yeah. You look so big and cool!"

"Eh, I'm not _that_ cool. You're just saying that because I'm an adult. If you knew me better, you'd find out that I'm just a giant nerd."  
"Don't say that. Come on, Patamon, let's go get some ice cream." The two ran out the door and Eric plopped onto the bed. Eric knew that bringing Patamon with him would be a bit of a handful, but at least the small Digimon had made a friend. Of course, that Jimmy kid looked much too young and naïve to go to be a Digimon Tamer. Then again, the kids in the original anime were all around his age for the most part themselves.

The kid had promise, he knew that.

* * *

A few days later, another Digimon emerged into the real world, just outside the Jawbreaker factory. When the group consisting of Kevin, the Eds, Rolf and Nazz got there, it wasn't doing any damage. It was a giant red eagle Digimon named Aquilamon, and it was perched on one of the smokestacks. Edd and Ed rode on Reppamon to investigate. The Digimon was badly injured and looked as if it was going to disintegrate any second.

"No, don't die, I want you to be my partner," Ed said, not really thinking about how the Digimon would most likely just turn into an egg and hugging its leg. The large bird seemed to respond though by lifting his head up. Then it simply devolved back into Poromon and Ed picked him up.

"Ed, you might want to get him home so we can bandage his wounds. Ed nodded and then proceeded to get on Reppamon. He rubbed the small bird gently. He had finally found what he was looking for.

* * *

Next Chapter: Imperial Part 1

When the group finds that the Alias had emerged in Mondo-A-Go-Go, they find themselves in the battle of their lives not only between Digimon but also a psychological battle between the Tamers themselves. But what's this, one of them detected a fourth signal?


	6. Imperial Part 1

Chapter 6: Imperial Part 1: Prelude to a Duel

* * *

A/N: Remember to review. I know there are those who like this story out there and I want to hear from you about how I can improve it.

Disclaimer: Do not own, do not sue.

* * *

In the depths of the imperial fortress in the Digital World, the imperial hands, the Alias III, were sitting at a gold table with wood at the center inside a conference room that had gold walls and red curtains with windows that showed the blue sky outside. Daniel and Lee were arguing about what to do while Damien just stared and listened. Then there was the one presiding over the conference himself: the Emperor.

"Here's the thing, those tamers know what they're doing. Going up against them is a bad idea, especially since they have Eric and MetalGarurumon on their side," Daniel said.

"Oh, please. All we have to do is a simple retrieval mission: go get the little yellow rat and get out. They won't even know what hit 'em until the next morning," Lee suggested.

"Then they'll use that as an excuse to go to the Digital World and possibly ruin everything we've done so far. I don't get it, what the *bleep* are you thinking. There are more things to consider in this *bleep*-ing fiasco that you want to admit." Needless to say, there was a swear filter in the Digital World that made using profanity impossible for some reason, no matter the language. The Emperor didn't mind since things would get pretty heated in these meetings. The last time, Daniel and Lee had to be pried from each other because they got into a fist fight.

Then the Emperor decided to intervene. "Won't you pipsqueaks knock it off! This is stupid. In case you forgot, Danny, I can get my Digimon to Mega too. I even beat MetalGarurumon fair and square." From behind, the Emperor had his long black hair in a ponytail. He was a large man, and his intimidating demeanor was increased by his red trenchcoat.

"Okay, my lord, what are your suggestions?" Damien asked. The temperature in the room seemed to go down ten degrees.

"Simple, you take care of the ankle biters while I go get the rat."

It seemed like a good idea to the three of them. Damien did have something he wanted to add though. "May I make a request, my lord?"

"Go ahead."

"I request that I battle the tamer named Robert directly."

The group was silent for a second. "Why the *bleep* would you want to do that?" Daniel asked.

"I have my reasons and I don't need to share them with anyone else. The Emperor knows the kind of research I've been doing on this group of Tamers and I feel I might be able to break Robert."

"I want to go against Eddy," Lee said.

"Somehow I doubt that will happen." Damien received what passed for a glare from the fiery red-head of a Kanker sister. He wasn't afraid. They were actually a lot more afraid of him.

"Okay, chumps, Damien gets to go against Robert, but _only_ if it doesn't interfere with the other battles."

"That's the plan, my lord."

* * *

"Okay, so I thought this up the time we fought that Groundramon thing. What if there's something we need in my brother's car?" Eddy asked Ed and Edd. They were in Eddy's room. "I mean, come on. I know we checked the entire house and didn't find anything but what if there's something _there_ that we didn't know about?"  
"That's a good idea, Eddy. We should probably go check it out. However I've been wondering, where is Robert?" Edd asked.

"Oh, he's just in the backyard doing his daily exercise routine."

"You know, Kevin likes to get a group together to go down to one of the local gyms for classes three times a week."

"Yeah, I know."

It was then that Robert walked into Eddy's room from outside, all sweaty. "Wait, Kevin goes to a class? Why didn't you tell me? When is it?"

"Oh, in about an hour."

"Oh, man, I gotta go. You're coming with, dude!"

"What!"

"Believe me, you need it. Same with you, Double D!"

"I would gladly come," Edd said. "I don't particularly like gym class at school however I do think that doing some basic strength training would be beneficial."

"Alright dude. I'll talk to Kevin about this."

* * *

Two hours later, they were all exhausted from working out, entering the locker rooms. "Hey, guys, I'm going to the steam room to relax if anyone feels like coming," Kevin told everyone, wearing only a towel, holding his red swim trunks and heading into the shower. Everyone was sweaty and the room stunk.

"I guess it is recommended to shower after intense exercise," Edd commented, taking his shirt off for all the fangirls and heading into the showers while holding his own swimtrunks.

Eddy however was already naked. Robert finally realized this. "Dude! What the heck?"

"Oh, please, you're just jealous."

"Seriously, put on a towel. There are very few people I could survive having naked around me and you're not one of them." Of course, Robert was still wearing his workout clothes. He took off his shirt and then he took off his pants and heard snickering. Eddy was still there.

"What is it this time?" Robert asked.

"Oh, just your purple tighty whities!" Robert rolled his eyes, wrapped his towel around, and took them off discreetly. He could care less that Eddy knew what type of underwear he wore; it's just that Eddy's immaturity was jarring sometimes. It was something that he expected when moving into Eddy's place, just not as much as he got. He proceeded to walk into the shower area and saw that there were partitions between the stalls so that nobody saw anything. _Good,_ he thought, picking one. After a quick shower, he put on his green trunks and walked out, heading to the pool area where Edd and Kevin already were. He walked through it and made his way into the white steam room.

"Hey, man, what's up?" Kevin asked, sitting in the hot room.

"I got freaked out by naked Eddy in there but other than that, nothing much."

Kevin laughed loudly. "Oh, man, that sucks. He's always doing that at school so, dude, I understand where you're coming from. He's so small too, so I don't get why he has to be naked all the time." Robert didn't want to hear that. He didn't even look at the robust Ed in that area, opting to look straight at the face and nothing else, though he noticed the nudity in his peripheral vision.

After Robert sat down, Kevin and Edd went back to their conversation about what to do next with the Digimon. "I'd say we need to find a way to evolve Digimon using the crests we have as well as find the remaining crests that belong to the first five tamers." Edd suggested.

"Yeah, dude, I totally agree with you. So, how are we going to get to the Digital World?" Kevin asked.

"Well, didn't Chaun mention something about finding a gate that lead there?"

"Yeah, supposedly the Gourd built it. I don't know about you but I find that really hard to believe."

"Likewise. But if this gate exists and is in the Junkyard like he said, we might have a way to get to the Digital World."

"Dude, it sucks that we have school, otherwise I would so do it."

"Maybe what we should do is find the gate and then use it when school gets out."

Ed and Eddy finally got in the steam room. "So, what's going on?" the once short Ed asked.

"We're going to look for the gate to the Digital World. I hear it's in the Junkyard," Kevin replied, stretching out his arms over his head.

"Sweet! Finally we'll go in there and defeat the Emperor."

"Not to mention get everyone out of the Digital World alive," Edd said. What none of them knew, however, was what happened to the gate.

**A few months earlier, Robert and Terriermon found the gate in the junkyard. "No way."**

** "You know, using this thing we can get back to the Digital World. Let's do it."**

** Just as the small dog-rabbit was about to run forward, Robert grabbed his ear. "No, Terriermon."**

** "Come on!"**

** "It's too dangerous. We should cover this thing up so nobody finds it."**

** Terriermon was shocked that Robert would say such a thing. "But what about saving Zack?"**

** "I have faith that he'll get out someday."**

** A few hours later, the gate was surrounded by cars and old tires and therefore indistinguishable from the rest of the terrain. Just after getting their job done, Terriermon noticed a piece of wood with a black mask and red eye slits. **

** "Terriermon, put that down. We got to get back home." Terriermon dropped the piece of wood. He could have sworn he heard it whisper his name.**

Of course Robert wouldn't tell them about that. They weren't ready. Besides, he didn't want to lose another friend to the Digital World.

Shortly after that part of the conversation they left the steam room. It turns out that Nazz, Rachelle and another girl entered the hot tub wearing bikinis. Nazz's was a new white one that she bought a year earlier, Rachelle's was blue and the other girl was wearing black. She also had short black hair and black eyeshadow. They were followed by Eric, who was hairy and wearing blue trunks. "What's up, guys!" he yelled out to them.

"Dude, what are you doing here?" Kevin asked.

"It turns out I have a membership to this gym from when I lived in Ohio. I decided I need to get back into working out for the obvious reasons." He patted his stomach.

"So guys, are you going to get in or what?" Nazz asked.

"Yeah, the water's nice and warm," Rachelle said in a jokingly seductive manner.

"Oh, yeah I'm getting in!" Eddy yelled out, but as he was about to jump into the pool, Edd grabbed his shoulder.

"Eddy, remember we need to check out your brother's car," Edd reminded.

"Oh, come on! Just for a few minutes?"

"I want to get back before dinner, Eddy."  
"Fine, fine, alright! Let's just go and get this over with." The three Eds went on out and Kevin took a dip in the Jacuzzi, trying to get in between the two girls he knew. They were going to look for the gate tomorrow anyway.

* * *

"So, you think you might be able to track down one of these anomalies?" Damien asked Datamon, a small Perfect level machine Digimon that served as the tactician for the Metal Empire before it was subsequently taken over by the present emperor.

The machine nodded. "Yes, if I just recalibrate the sensors in the fortress, I might be able to track down one of these anomalies and send you through it. Since it will take some time to get the gate up and running again, this is the best manner of getting to the Human World."

"Okay, just get it ready soon. Believe me, you don't want me to wait."  
"Yeee…ee…s sir," Nanomon replied, putting his circuits back into the wall jack.

"So, any response from the search team?" Lee asked Daniel. He was about to order inside the imperial dining hall and was looking over the menu to see what the chef, a Digitamamon, should make him today. As far as Lee was concerned, Daniel merely tolerates her.

"Well, I never know because the teams leader reports directly to the Emperor. You should go and ask him."

"I tried. He's too intimidating."

"Yeah? I agree with you on that. It doesn't help that I'm on bad terms with his brother which he found out as soon as the loser came here. The *bleep* really should have shut his *bleep* mouth."

"You know, the swearing's really getting on my nerves."

"Oh, shut up. It's nothing you didn't hear in school."

"At least in school you did't hear a nasty beeping sound instead."

"Huh? What beeping sound?"

* * *

Back in the real world, the Eds and their Digimon were riding on Aquilamon to the location of the giant rock in the undeveloped desert area near Peach Creek where they crashed Eddy's brother's car and later on fought Groundramon. "Oh, yeah! There it is, boys!" Eddy exclaimed.

"Oh, my. Now Eddy, I've been having second thoughts about this. We checked all over your brother's room and didn't find a single thing that could help us. What makes you think that there's something here?" Edd asked doubtful.

"Hey, my bro stashed a bunch of stuff in the trunk of his car that he didn't want my parents seeing so why not? Besides, there's no harm in checking and finding out that nothing's there, right?"

"Well, other than the time being wasted.

Ed's digivice vibrated. "Cool!" He, while still holding onto his Digimon, grabbed his digivice and checked it. It was glowing purple. "Maybe I found a crest."  
"I doubt it." Then Edd's digivice did the same thing. His was glowing orange. "Oh my…"

"See! Coming here was a good idea! Take us down!" When they got down off the giant eagle, they walked over to the trunk which was only a short ways away from the giant rock they crashed into. Edd noticed the label on the red car part saying 'out of order' and remembered when he put it on there. Eddy and Ed both stuck crowbars into the thing and opened it, doing so because the trunk was so badly damaged that opening it by normal means would be impossible.

Inside, they found old magazines, a dead snake, and numerous other odds and ends, most of which were absolutely useless. The magazines, for instance, were wet and their ink was smeared so that they were illegible. Of course it was the pictures that mattered, but those were all smudges. Soon, they found a box and opened it, finding five crests inside. "Huh? Five?" Edd mused, "If you include the crest you're wearing, Eddy, that would make six. That can't be right."  
"Oh, well, I guess we can try these out, right." Two of the crests started to glow orange or purple. Edd grabbed the orange one and Ed grabbed the purple one.

"Huh?" Ed looked at his confused.

"Oh, my, there has to be a mix-up. If I am correct, this is the Crest of Courage!" Edd exclaimed.

"Cool! I got the crest of Knowledge. Maybe my Aquilamon will digivolve into MegaKabuterimon."

"I'm sorry, Ed, but your logic doesn't really match up."

"Oh, well, who cares?" Eddy said, "Man, what else is in here?" Eddy pulled out something unexpected, a digivice. "What the…"

Edd looked at the digivice. It was much like Eddy's, but where Eddy's was yellow, this digivice was green. "Oh, my. Do you think that digivice actually belongs to your… your…"

"No way, we actually found my bro's digivice! Sweet! You know this means that we won't be fighting him."

"That is unless he got a new digivice. You know that since the Kankers are in the Digital World that means that he might be there too."

"I didn't see him in the Alias III. All we got was a blond prep, a Kanker, and a really creepy emo."

"I believe the correct term is Goth, since he didn't have the combed over hair or anything and because he didn't act stereotypically emo."

"Cool, he's a Goth like Ebony," Ed said.

"Ebony? Who the heck is that?" Eddy asked.

"Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way. She's so cool. She was a vampire in a fan fiction who went to Hogwarts and dated Draco, hung out with Vampire and Bloody Mary, went to Good Charlotte and My Chemical Romance concerts, traveled though time and met-"

"Dude! That's enough! That story sounds like crap."

"I think I remember reading about that on TVTropes one time. It has a reputation for being the worse fan fiction ever conceived," Edd commented. "Then again, that's probably why you'd like it so much, huh Ed?"

"Maybe. I just read an MST of it. It was so funny."

"Well, that's reassuring."

"Yeah, right. So, how the heck do you get this thing to turn on? It doesn't seem to be doing anything," Eddy asked, looking at the new digivice."

"Let me see." Eddy handed his friend the device. It looked just like all the other digivices they found but it was noticeably heavier. "How strange." Edd opened it up and it wasn't working. "It seems that this digivice is an older model of sorts. There are buttons instead of a touch screen for typing for instance. I have to find a way to turn it on in order to check the software but I'm sure that's archaic too."

"Ah, well, maybe we should get back," Eddy suggested.

"What about this?" Commandramon asked, pulling a photo album out of the trunk. Eddy shrugged and grabbed it, opening it.

"I don't think this is going to help us against the Alias, but whatever." He looked at the pictures which were surprisingly in tact due to being in waterproof plastic: wedding pictures of people he didn't know, but looked familiar, somehow, though it wasn't an actual ceremony and looked as if a judge had married the two; pictures from some cruise trip, probably the couple's honeymoon; pictures of the woman in the couple pregnant; a picture of the baby in red. The woman looked familiar now. Then it hit Eddy and he shut the album.

"What is it, Eddy?" Edd asked.

"Um, nothing," Eddy responded, sweating… remembering…

**"He needs to know," Eddy heard his dad say through his bedroom door. He was seen from the back of his head with curly brown hair.**

** "Not now, honey. He's still not ready to learn about him…"**

** "He's twelve years old, for crying out loud! He needs to know about his…" **

Eddy stood there, quiet. "It's obviously not nothing. Don't be afraid to tell me, Eddy."

"I said it's nothing!" Eddy snapped.

Knowing Eddy's brother, Edd expected the worst. "Don't tell me you found pictures of your brother…"

"Of course not." Eddy looked at the cover of the album and saw a picture of the couple, including his mother and brother when he was only about five, a pudgy looking kid with a full head of black hair and the signature giant chin. The reflection of the sun covered the picture of his father. "Let's just go home."

"If you say so…" Edd was truly concerned about his friend. Obviously he had no idea what Eddy found but it must have troubled him greatly.

* * *

"It's time." The Emperor's zeppelin was flying over a digital anomaly that would lead to the human world. It was a dark green vortex. "We'll have to skydive to get to the real world. Once we're there, I'll have to set the space-time oscillation bomb myself if we want to go back," instructed the Emperor. "You go first. Tactimon, you're in charge while I'm away. Don't make too much of a mess."

"Yes, my liege," the mega-level samurai Digimon responded. Daniel, Lee and BlackTailmon got on the back of Devidramon and went straight down there while Damien caused Impmon to evolve to his Adult form Boogeymon, a red devilish Digimon, to fly down himself. The emperor was dead last.

"Ready BlackAgumon. Time to go to Mega." The Emperor had his red and black digivice in his hand held out in front of him.

After reaching the real world, the Alias stood around, waiting for their liege to emerge from the Digital Field. It was the middle of the night and the Emperor and BlackAgumon finally emerged, putting on his sunglasses. He had a round face and a large chin with a goatee. It was clear who he was. "Now it's time for you to head to the rendezvous point. You remember where that is, right?"  
The group nodded and boarded the flying Digimon that they used to get through the rift, heading for the area where they will have their battle: the abandoned amusement park known as Mondo-a-go-go.

The Emperor watched on in contentment as the group left and then he turned the stealth mode on his digivice on. "Tonight's gonna be a good night indeed."

* * *

Eddy couldn't sleep that night. How come when things were getting good something has to come out of nowhere and bring back repressed memories like of two years ago before that last full summer of scamming? Didn't he already prove to himself that his ancestors have lived here for three hundred years?

Then again, his family looked nothing like those ancestors.

_Come on, Eddy. It's not like this is ever gonna come up again. Is it?_ Eddy pondered over things. His disappeared cousin. How he never felt at home around family. How he never actually met his mom's parents. _What the heck is going on? You've lived here all your life! Don't let those doubts get to you, man._ He got up and left the room.

When he came back a few minutes later, he noticed his digivice was vibrating. "All three Aliases emerged. Meet at my place – Kevin" Eddy put on his clothes and walked upstairs to see if Robert was up. He opened the door and found the fan on at full blast. Even then it was still hot in the room. Eddy flipped on the light switch. Robert was still in bed.

"Hey, sleepyhead. The Alias are in town again. Get up."

Robert pulled the covers over his head gradually. "Dude, it's 2 AM. Wait, did you say Alias?"  
"Yeah."

Terriermon grabbed some clothes from Robert's suitcase and said: "You know the drill."

"Gee, thanks Terriermon."

"You didn't get the memo?"

"Um, no, I put my digivice on stealth mode at night. Need the sleep." Robert sat up. "Would you mind…?"

"Yeah, sure." Eddy walked out of the room and asked: "Are you naked in there?"

"Um yeah. Dude, your brother's room gets really hot at night, okay. There's like no ventilation in here."

"Oh, okay."

* * *

At Nazz's house, Nazz and Eric were in the kitchen, grabbing something to eat before leaving. "So, like, Kevin only wants you to come if we need your help."

"Which he will. Three Perfect level Digimon can't be defeated by nine Adults."

"Kevin figured something about their hacked evolution that he's going to use against them. He said that we just need to stall for time."

"Alright, just don't be surprised if they're more than you bargained for."

"Don't worry man. I'm not a kid anymore."

"You're still my little sister, remember that."

"I will. Come on Palmon." Nazz walked out the door.

* * *

Rachelle rode Kyuubimon to the rendezvous point in Seawall, the location of Mondo-a-go-go. She had never gone to the park but she heard about it. Not a soul was in sight in that small town as all the shops were closed due to it being in the middle of the night. _Come on, guys, where are you? _she thought as Edd and Ed arrived on their Adult-level Digimon. "About time you guys showed up."

"It seems we're a bit early," Edd commented.

"So are you ready to go against four bad guys?" Ed asked.

Rachelle was confused. "Four? I thought there were only three."

"My digivice vibrated while I was watching _The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy_. There were four tamers that emerged in the swamps near Lemon Brook."

"Oh, my. We have to tell Kevin about this," Edd said.

"Why couldn't I have just had a normal night sleeping."  
"Then again, we are tamers. This is our job."

"Yeah, I know. Some days I wish it wasn't." Rachelle then thought about her friend who was still in the digital world. At least she didn't get suffer _that_ fate.

Then Eddy, Robert and Nazz arrived on Rapidmon. "Alright, guys. Let's get this show on the road," Eddy said. "I've gotta get home and sleep."  
"Shouldn't we wait for Kevin?" Edd asked.

"Yeah. Where is shovel-chin at anyway?" Then they saw Quetzalmon, a giant flying white snake with wings coming towards them in the air. It landed and then reverted back into Wormmon."Sorry I'm late, dudes. My parents caught me trying to sneak out," Kevin said, walking towards the others with Guilmon, Chaun, Wormmon, Rolf and Betamon, a green quadrupedal amphibian with a red fin on its head, following closely behind.

"There's something concerning our enemy that you should know about, Kevin," Edd spoke up, "it seems that Ed discovered a fourth signal at the point where the enemy emerged."

"Any info on them, Ed?"

"No. The signal disappeared before I could check."

_Great. Just what we need._ "What color was it?"

"Red and Black."

Eddy looked up at Ed and then at his digivice and then at the green digivice he found that evening. _Oh crap. What if…_

"I don't recognize the colors. Then again, Ed was probably staying up all night and probably just seeing things," Kevin suggested.

Ed looked at Kevin. _I know what I saw. There's someone else there._ Something told him that things weren't going to be alright. "I'm going to head back just in case."

"No, Ed, we need you here."  
"Aw, come on!"

"I said no! Now the teams are Ed with Rachelle and Nazz; me with Eddy and Rolf; Edd with Robert and Chaun. Got it?"

Everyone nodded and headed to the gate of the once thriving amusement park. Ed didn't like this one bit and Eddy couldn't shake the feeling that he knew who the fourth intruder was.

* * *

Next Chapter is Part 2. Yeah. Let's just say the games really do begin there… It isn't pretty for some of the characters I'm afraid.

The next chapters are going start getting a bit different in style. I'm hoping to get into those characters' heads a bit more with a nutcase subplot that I developed before thinking of doing a Digimon crossover. I just read the Digimon Tamers fanfic Tamer's Requiem: Hazard's Sorrow and I kind of want to deepen my characterizations of everyone, especially the Digimon and the neglected characters.

Oh, and a bit of trivia: yes, Tactimon is from XrosWars. It's not specifically said if he's a mega but I figured he might as well be. It just sucks that XrosWars seems to have thrown out levels all together since that's one of the things I really liked about Digimon Adventure when I first encountered it all those years ago. Still, I think the Digimon itself is cool.

Stay tuned and review, por favor.


	7. Imperial Part 2

Chapter 7: Imperial Part 2: Friends and Enemies

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon… so don't bug me about that.

* * *

Towards the entrance, Daniel came up to meet the group, followed closely by Devidramon. "So, you guys came with a small army, I see. This is gonna be fun."

"Oh, please. It's just going to be me, Rolf and Eddy going against you. Where are the others?"

"Lee's over there," he pointed to his right, "and Damien's over there," he pointed to his left.

"Okay dudes, you know your groups! Move out!" Kevin ordered, and everyone except for his party remained, opting to get out of the way before Daniel got to them.

"So, this is your group? Doesn't seem very impressive," Daniel commented. Then he looked at the others, Rolf, a foreign kid who was really tall with dark hair and a Betamon for a partner. _This guy seems somewhat decent. Doubt he'll last long, though. _Then he saw Eddy and was startled. "Wait, so you're Eddy?"

"Yeah, so? What's to it?"

He had to pause for a second to organize his words correctly. "Here's the thing: I don't want fight your Digimon. I know you heard a bunch of bad things about me, I'm sure, but I care about you and I care about your brothers. I already hurt you guys enough by my actions and I don't want you getting hurt anymore."

Eddy was startled. "Wait, you said brothers…"

"Oh, sorry, I just meant brother, singular."

Eddy thought about it all for a second. "Yeah, right, that wasn't a mistake. You really are hiding something! Besides, how do you know my bro? Commandramon! Let's get beat the crap out of this guy!"

"Commandramon, evolve! Sealsdramon!"

Daniel then turned deadly serious. "Okay, mother…" a plane flew really low overhead so you couldn't hear the next two syllables. It was strange since there wasn't an airport nearby and it was the middle of the night. "Let's get this over with. By the way, how I know your brother is none of your business." Daniel held up his digivice. "Activate Hacked Super Evolution!"

"Devidramon Super Evolve!" The sight of Devidramon evolving was something else. It consisted of a metal helmet covering his head, his hind legs fusing with his tail, his skin turning grey, his wings being replaced by metallic ones and his hands being replaced by metal rocket launchers. "Gigadramon!"

"Sealsdramon! Scouter Monoeye!"

"Got it!" the Digimon yelled out its attack and found the weakness. "Aim for the chest."

"Oh, please, you think it's going to be that easy? Think again, tubbo!"

"Guilty Claw!" the dragon yelled, opening up its claws and launching missiles. Sealsdramon barely dodged them.

"Guilmon!" Kevin yelled, holding his digivice.

"Betamon! Let's show this foul-mouthed gringo what Rolf thinks of his cybernetic monstrosity!" Rolf said, holding his turquoise and red digivice.

"Guilmon evolve! Growlmon!"

"Betamon evolve! Seadramon!"

"Oh, good. How nice of you losers to join the party," Daniel taunted, a crazed look on his face.

* * *

Elsewhere, Ed, Nazz and Rachelle reached the location where Lee was at: an abandoned Ferris wheel, LadyDevimon waiting as well. "Oh, look at this, if it isn't the neighborhood hussy and her brunette counterpart from another town. And then there's Ed. Wait, where's Eddy? I want _him_!"

Rachelle looked at the redhead. "So you don't remember me from when we fought in the Digital World, huh?"

"How could I? You're face is so unmemorable that I forgot it after about two seconds. Besides, when you're as beautiful as I am, who needs to remember people like you?"

"Beautiful? Like, dude, your fashion tastes are atrocious," Nazz commented. "I mean, seriously, what's with that hair and you, like, don't shave your legs."

"Oh, please. I'm tired of talking, let's just get on with this."

Before LadyDevimon could attack, Kyuubimon and Togemon targeted the black humanoid, aiming for the specter on her shoulder. Kyuubimon used Fox Tail Inferno, summoning numerous flames from the tip of her tails and launching them at LadyDevimon while Togemon used Needle Spray, launching numerous thorns at the enemy. LadyDevimon simply countered with Darkness Wave, sending numerous bats at the enemy. Unfortunately, after doing this, she got hit from behind by Aquilamon, who used Blast Laser, firing red ring-like waves from his mouth. Aquilamon managed to get behind LadyDevimon while they were talking.

"What did you do that for?" Lee yelled at Ed's Digimon. "I'm the one who's supposed to be winning, not you!"

"Wow, it seems like Ed's starting to outsmart Lee," Nazz commented.

Then Ed spoke, coming up from behind Nazz and Rachelle. "Who's the fourth Alias who came with you guys?"

"What do you mean, fourth Alias? There's only three of us!" Lee contended.

"Who came with you guys from the Digital World?" Ed asked.

"Nobody."

"Liar! Somebody did come from the Digital World. Who was he?"

Lee was surprised that Ed knew that much, still she wasn't going to give away the Emperor. "Shut up! Nobody came with us, you stupid retard!"

"Don't call Ed stupid! Ed is not stupid!"

"It was the Emperor, wasn't it?" Nazz suggested. "We've gotta get back to Peach Creek. What if he's doing something there?"

Rachelle agreed. "I always knew something was fishy about coming here to deal with these guys. Unfortunately by the time we get back to Peach Creek, whoever it is that went there might be long gone. Not to mention that if Lee gets left alone she might end up going after one of the other groups."

Nazz nodded. "Then again, Eric's in Peach Creek, so everything should be okay. I'm sure of it." Nazz had no idea how wrong she was.

* * *

Chaun found the section of the park they went to especially creepy. Especially considering the giant squid. It reminded him too much of the time when he was in the Digital World and a squid-like Digimon Gesomon attacked him, pulling him underwater. Then again, the Gesomon had been an agent of the Dark Ocean so that may have had something to do with it.

But still, it was a squid. "Man, why did that Damien guy have to pick here?" he asked.

"I'm a little confused about it myself," Edd said walking along with Reppamon. He didn't really see any sort of strategic importance in being here. Then again, the enemy might have had a few tricks up his sleeve. Robert and Rapidmon were wandering just a little bit ahead of the two.

"Man, this reminds me of that time we ran into Piedmon's flying circus," Robert said, somewhat jokingly, looking at a clown statue.

"Oh, man, don't mention it," Chaun commanded. "It's bad enough having this giant squid here to freak me out but you had to mention that freaky clown." That had been an adventure and a half. During their time in the Digital World, they had come across an airship that housed a travelling circus. Unfortunately it contained some of the most grotesque looking monsters and they attempted to kidnap one of the tamers for reasons unknown. Zack was incapacitated, having been turned into a keychain, so Chaun had to borrow his digivice in order to Jogress the two partner Digimon into Dinobeemon, get the fellow tamer, and leave all while avoiding Piedmon.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned. But in the end, Sleipmon, one of the Royal Knights ended up saving them, having been investigating the circus.

"I remember that," Reppamon commented, confusing Robert.

"How could you remember that? You and Double D weren't even Partners then!" Robert said.

"Of course he was. Sleipmon is Reppamon's Mega form. Didn't you know that?" Chaun asked.

"I did," Edd said.

"Sorry, dude, I'm not into this thing as much as you are," Robert stated. Then they heard laughing from above.

"Man, now this is _really_ starting to remind me of Piedmon a little too much," Chaun said, looking at the psychotic Goth wannabe who was on top of the clown. Then there was a Digimon right next to him, one that reminded Chaun of the Red Guy from 'Cow and Chicken', only way bigger and with a pointed nose, not to mention all the weird markings on his body. That and he had a pitchfork.

"So, what do you think? Who should die first?" Damien asked. "Hmm…?"

Chaun knew this guy was going to be hard to deal with, judging from what his friends told him about Damien. Sure he wasn't there and the Alias wasn't in the Digital World at the time that Chaun was, but he had an idea of how difficult dark types could be. "Double D! Have Reppamon attack Boogeymon right now!"

"Got it!" Reppamon jumped up toward Boogeymon, who simply said **"Ruby Eye"** and Reppamon vanished.

"Oh my," Edd stood there in shock. Now he couldn't do anything.

_Crap, _Chaun thought. He had no idea how bad this villain could be and if that attack was any indication, this was going to be a heck of a lot tougher than he thought.

Next, without any indication, Damien slid a card through his digivice. "Um, Robert," Robert looked behind him to see that Rapidmon had devolved into Terriermon. Seeing this, Robert pulled out his Digimental of Destiny card. Just as he was about to slide it though, Boogeymon ran up to him in the nick of time and yanked the card out of Robert's hand. Robert was freaked out because of having come face to face with the Digimon who turned the card to ashes with his touch.

_What now?_ Robert asked himself. His fear of being right in front of the enemy Digimon caused his digivice to glow green and his Digimon to evolve. "Terriermon evolve! Galgomon!"

Galgomon proceeded to tackle the red devil, hitting him with his arm guns. After a couple of hits, the enemy simply flew up above Galgomon. "You think you're out of my way? Think again!" Galgomon shot at the enemy who spun around his pitchfork, deflecting the bullets.

"Chaun!" Wormmon exclaimed.

"Got it," Chaun held out his digivice.

"Wormmon Evolve! Stingmon!" Stingmon proceeded to fly up to the enemy Digimon, extending his arm blade. Whilehe was doing that, Damien scanned another card. **"Spiking Finish,"** Stingmon yelled moving forward to stab Boogeymon with his blade, but the red devil moved out of the way.

"You're not much in terms of strategy," Damien commented. "Who's next to go? How about the one with brown hair." Damien smiled.

"**Ruby Eye!"** Boogeymon yelled, and both Stingmon and Robert disappeared.

"Why did you get rid of the bug?"

"Didn't feel like constantly dodging him. It was getting rather tiresome," Boogeymon responded.

"Of course."

"This isn't looking good," Edd commented.

Chaun agreed. "No kidding. Now if there was at least one more Digimon and a digivice here, we could attempt a Jogress, but that ain't gonna happen."

Knowing the situation here, Edd wondered how the others were faring. Of course, he vanished, along with Galgomon.

"You know, this is just plain retarded," Chaun said, trembling, "Killing us all? What are you thinking?"

Damien smiled. "Who ever said anything about killing you? Boogeymon?" The red devil nodded, using his ruby eye attack on one last enemy.

* * *

Chaun found himself sitting in a white room, sitting in a chair. Now it reminded him of the last episode of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', not something he wanted to think about at a time like this. There was a speaker on the ceiling above him and no doors.

"So, Chaun, are you prepared to face your worst nightmare?" Boogeymon's voice asked and Chaun tensed, feeling something slither up his leg as 'Cold Hearted Snake' by Paula Abdul started playing in the background.

* * *

Edd likewise found himself in a white room, getting the same announcement. All the sudden the walls caught on fire.

* * *

Robert found himself in a white room, but without the announcement. He was just sitting there. After a few minutes, Damien walked through the wall in front of him.

_Now what? _he asked himself.

* * *

Back in Peach Creek, Eric glanced at his digivice's map screen that appeared when you flipped it open. He glanced at Jimmy's digivice signal, which was light blue and white, then shut it off. He had a bad feeling about tonight that just wouldn't dissipate. He continued watching TV on the couch. There wasn't much on this time of night, so he was just watching some DVDs. While it was in the middle of an action scene involving a guy jumping out of a helicopter, he heard a crash outside.

* * *

Jimmy was terrified. Patamon sensed the other Digimon quickly enough to get them out the window before it came clawing through his bedroom door, but he knew he wouldn't be able to escape it for long. This was scarier than anything. He ran over to Ed's window which was conveniently open, then up the stairs. He knew that he would be safe with Sarah in her room.

Unfortunately, when he opened up her door, he saw Sarah held above the ground by the black-skinned dragon man that was chasing him.

Jimmy's digivice started glowing with white and blue light.

* * *

Sealsdramon had no idea why the heck Kevin would put three ground or sea based Adult Levels against a flying perfect level. It was obviously a bad move and Gigadramon was seriously kicking their butts. Still, Sealsdramon had faith in his partner, Eddy, since he had been taking Taming somewhat seriously. Well, more seriously than schoolwork anyway. In the few weeks since becoming a tamer, Eddy had put together a deck of cards that could help him against a variety of enemies, whether they were flying, sea-based, or just a regular ground based foe. Still, he needed his help more than ever.

"Eddy! Give me wings!"  
"Don't got any Red Bull, but this'll work." Eddy said while pulling out a card. Sealsdramon cringed at Eddy's joke, not seeing the humor in it. "Card slash! White wings!"

Then the cybernetic assassin grew four glowing wings on his back and flew up to confront the Digimon. When Kevin saw this, he asked, "Hey, dude, can you pass that card to me and Rolf."

Eddy nodded and flipped the card Kevin's way, the red head barely catching it and slashing it then throwing it to Rolf. Unfortunately, Rolf didn't catch it and instead ran for it, apologizing. When he finally picked up the card, he slashed it himself.

Now they had three Digimon in the air, none of them originally capable of flying. The battle was starting to get a whole lot more intense and Sealsdramon liked that. "Come on, let's beat the living crap out of this thing!" the cybernetic soldier ordered the other two Digimon while throwing several knives. Growlmon shot his Exhaust Flame and Seadramon shot his Ice Arrow, all aiming toward the Cyborg Dragon Gigadramon's chest. The Dragon was fast though and only had to deal with several knives in his wing.

"Now, regroup! Attack from several angles," Kevin yelled into his open digivice.

"Well, it looks like you may all be competent after all," Daniel commented, facing the three Tamers on the ground.

"Oh, please, you think you can just stand around here while our Digimon are fighting?" Kevin asked, then said, "No way, dude!" He ran over to the enemy tamer and was about to punch him, but the enemy tamer got out of the way and tripped Kevin, causing the angry redhead to fall into the ground face first. Daniel simply looked at the other two tamers.

"Rolf demands to know why the three of you chose to come into this world!" Rolf demanded.

"Okay, I'll tell you. You see, the Digimon Emperor is this guy named Derek, who's also a total sleazebag, but you guys probably know that already. Anyway, he went off to kidnap a Digimon named Patamon, who his former second-in-command, a guy named Eric, hey that rhymes, ran to the Real World with. There, satisfied?"

The three tamers on both sides of Daniel just stood there and looked on in silence. "You mean to tell me that Eddy's no-good brother is that evil Emperor of the Digital World we've been hearing about?" Kevin asked.

"This changes everything. Rolf will personally go back to Peach Creek and pluck the back hairs out of the imbecile one by one!"

"Sure, go ahead. Be sure to have written a will before hand and invite me to your funeral since Derek can evolve his Digimon to the Mega Level," Daniel warned. "You already know about how he was a tamer long before you guys, right?"  
"Yeah. Of course we know. I have his digivice right here!" Eddy said, showing the black and green digivice to Daniel.

"Um, that's not his digivice. His is black and red and he's had it for years. I'm not sure _who_ that belongs to, but it's definitely not Derek's."

Then Eddy remembered the picture he found in Zack's iPod. _That has to be it. Daniel didn't mistakenly say brothers. He meant it._ "What about my other brother? Does he have a digivice?"

_So, he does know._ "Huh? Yeah, that idiot has one. Oh, and by the way, he's a stupid goody-two-shoe snitch who told my parents about how I was smoking. As if the stuff is going to kill me before I turn fifty. Not that I smoke anymore, mind you." Daniel chucked. "Oh, and his digivice is black and blue. Kind of funny how they seem to match the color schemes of your shirts and they all have black on them."

The other three tamers looked at him with the thought of _what the heck?_ on their faces. The concept of Eddy having another brother was unsettling to say the least. _What if he turns out to be worse than Derek?_ Kevin asked himself. _Not to mention, where has he been all this time._

"He looks just like me, right? Does that mean we're…?"

"Oh, yeah, your resemblance is uncanny. It seems you were twins separated sometime after birth. Not sure when though." Daniel thought some more. "You didn't even meet. How'd you know what he looked like?"

"I saw a picture on this guy's iPod. It belonged to some guy named Zack. You know him?"

Daniel smiled. "Of course I know him." _What's his iPod doing here? Oh, great, Lee took it here, didn't she? _Daniel didn't know that this was going to turn out this way. He just assumed that since Eddy's other brother knew he existed that Eddy would too. "They're all a part of the same group of idiots who like to do 'what's right.' How come they can't rebel? They need to live a little."

"And be like you, an evil dirtbag who left behind everything that mattered. Man, if there's one thing I learned in the past year, it's how much my friends matter to me. Ever since running into my brother last summer, I've slowly been becoming a better friend and I'm happier because of it and it's not just because I get jawbreakers from Kevin or because I have Double D being the brains, it's because I have what I've always wanted. Now, here's the thing: by dumping all your friends back there, you've lost everything that mattered. I know that it's not so great to have a friend wail on you. I had a grudge against Double D for getting my report card to my parents, but we're still friends. And because Double D got my parents my report card, they've been helping me more and I have better grades because of it. There!"

Eddy was breathing heavily after his rant. Heck, he didn't really appreciate what Edd had done at the time but looking back, at least it prevented him from flunking another year. Being held back once was bad enough as it was.

Daniel stood there in shock. This Eddy guy had more to him that meets the eye. _Why was I sent here? How come I had to go against him?_

_He's right.

* * *

_

Up in the air, Growlmon was getting a bit too aggressive. "What are you doing?" Sealsdramon yelled, seeing that the crimson dinosaur was getting a bit too close to Gigadramon. "Are you nuts?"

"Growlmon then went face to face with the dragon, and used Exhaust Flame on him square in the face. The Gigadramon's helmet protected him though and he proceeded to shoot a missile point blank at Growlmon's chest, causing the dinosaur to leak data and fall to the ground.

Sealsdramon and Seadramon used the opportunity to strike the grey dragon in his weak spot, successfully hitting Gigadramon and dealing massive amounts of damage.

Growlmon reached the ground and devolved further than his Child from, having a nasty wound on his chest. "Growlmon!" Kevin yelled, running toward the small creature that he was now. The digivice identified him as Gigimon.

Daniel looked at Kevin and Gigimon. _Why aren't I like that with my Digimon?_ he asked himself.

* * *

After deducing that there really was a fourth enemy Tamer in the real world, the girls and Ed had to go on the defensive. Togemon had to dodge LadyDevimon's Darkness Spear, an attack that consisted of her turning one of her arms into a lance. The giant cactus Digimon was having a miserable time too, it was as if LadyDevimon was going straight for her.

Of course, such a tactic had its disadvantages too, which LadyDevimon quickly realized upon receiving another blast to the back from both Kyuubimon and Aquilamon. "I see you're doing your job quite well for idiots," LadyDevimon commented. "Especially you, Kyuubimon. It's too bad the one time I fought against your squad of Tamers in the Digital World, we couldn't go against each other. Lee wanted to trap that one guy, anyway. Of course he just had to spoil our plans and activate his crest."

"Personally, I don't understand why your partner was so intent on capturing our friend. It seemed like an awful amount of trouble," Kyuubimon replied.

"Well, we did get him eventually when the Emperor found you five trying to leave the Digital World. Then the Emperor sent him on some stupid mission and we haven't seen him since."

Before meeting Lee, LadyDevimon had been a part of Piedmon's Flying Circus, that is before it got busted by Sleipmon for having shady ties, though with whom was a mystery to her. Of course, before that whole incident with Sleipmon and that group of Tamers, she got injured on a mission and reverted back to her Adult form.

Later on, the Empire found her and she was given to Lee. Lee was the one person who gave her meaning in life after Piedmon was defeated, and because of that LadyDevimon felt indebted to her, so much that she was more than willing to defeat these scoundrels.

"Darkness Wave!" the black-wearing female yelled, sending a large group of bats at the trio of Adult Levels, covering them. The black Digimon smiled.

* * *

Lee decided that that was a good time to attempt to fight the girls herself. Of course, as humans they didn't have the difference in power that their Digimon had so she just kind of made a fool of herself when Ed grabbed her from behind.

"So, what's the point of this? What made you join the Alias III in the first place?" Nazz asked.

"Oh, there were a bunch of reasons. One was that since I was an Alias, I would be able to go to the real world and escape. Then there's the perks. I would be able to keep an eye on both Derek and my other boyfriend. Then there's the fun factor. Nothing like going on secret missions. Too bad my sisters couldn't come. They ended up being shipped out with a few others including that Zack guy that I love so much."

_Somehow I doubt it's more than a one-sided infatuation. _Nazz could never understand girls like that. It just made them seem so shallow. Then again, she did remember that one time where she had a thing for Kevin while he was more concerned about his bike.

Ed just continued holding on to Lee for dear life despite her constant struggling. He hoped that LadyDevimon didn't go after them for this. At least this meant that she couldn't card slash.

* * *

Stingmon found himself in a black area with his comrades, Reppamon and Galgomon. It was black but he could still see everthing on everyone, even better than outside the black zone. Soon, right in front of them, Phelesmon phased from underground. Despite being a giant bug, Stingmon found the Pan-inspired monster really creepy. _What does he want?_

"How did you maintain this stupid illusion and still evolve?" Galgomon asked, pointing his gun-arm at the black monster that created the darkness.

Phelesmon's voice sounded raspy. "It's easy. The illusion will stay as long as I'm not out. That means you just have to defeat me. But before that, let's just have a little talk, okay?"

"Why do you want to talk?" Stingmon asked.

Phelesmon had to think for a few seconds to figure out what to say. "Simply put, I don't agree with my Tamer's actions as of late. He seems obsessed with some secret project of his. I also don't like what the Emperor has been doing lately either. First I joined his forces to fight against a common enemy, the former ruler of the imperial territory, Mugendramon."

"Mugendramon? You mean the ruler of the Metal Empire?" Galgomon asked.

"Precisely. Did you live in the imperial territory?"

"No, my village was on the far side of Folder Continent."

"Well, I unfortunately lived in a breakaway village that was conquered two years ago by Mugendramon's army. If it weren't for a renegade Darkdramon, I would have probably died back then. The times were tough."

"Darkdramon?" Reppamon mused. "I think I remember encountering this one. He was a career soldier who deserted the Metal Empire army after seeing a Tsunomon village burned for no reason."

"That would be him. Eventually he worked with the Tamer who became Emperor. Unfortunately, in the end, he ended up going against him too and was defeated and fled, badly injured. The Emperor commanded that his egg be found but it never was."

"So, what do we do now?" Galgomon asked.

"Simple, you fight me and load my data. I don't want to be Damien's partner anymore," Phelesmon said without flinching.

Stingmon, Galgomon and Reppamon knew that none of them could do such a thing. The three of them had long ago decided not to load the data from other Digimon and they weren't going to give in to doing that again. Stingmon was the one to speak for the group: "We can't do that. There _has _to be a better way."

"No, I can't live as Damien's Digimon anymore." Seeing that the others weren't going to fight him, he marched forward and attempted to attack Stingmon head on, hoping to illicit an attack from the green insectoid in self-defense.

* * *

Edd found himself in a burning room, tied to a chair. The whole thing was giving him flashbacks. He remembered the entire thing, burned into his memory like some sort of curse.

He hated it. He felt helpless with nowhere to run. He smelled the smoke, felt the heat and the tears crawl down his face, felt the burns on the top of his head, the scarring itching from when he was trapped. He wanted out but there was no way. His heartbeat was up and he felt like he was starting to hyperventilate.

"HELP!" he yelled, but no one heard him.

He was willing to die to get out of this misery.

* * *

Chaun didn't like bugs. First they're slimy, gross and creepy. Then there's how they felt attracted to him. Of course the only one with mosquito bites from soccer had to be him. It's kind of ironic, then, that he got Wormmon as a partner.

Not to mention he hated eighties music. Ever since Boogeymon's announcement, he's been hearing non-stop eighties. It irked him. First there was the random noise in the background that didn't go with how the words were sung most of the time. They didn't flow at all. Heck, when the local Mix station has eighties lunch, he switches to the local Mexican music station.

Peach Creek desperately needed an Alternative station. In fact, it's right next to a big city. Unfortunately due to the station being on the complete opposite side of town and having weak signal strength for no reason, Peach Creek just got static.

Then again, why was he complaining? He liked Coldplay, a band that Kevin absolutely despises.

He stuck the chair in a corner and attempted to stand on top of it to get away from the numerous bugs, ranging from worms to spiders to scorpions and everything in between. Oh, how he wanted out of there.

* * *

"You were born in Calgary, Alberta. You never knew your father. You moved around a lot as a kid, eventually living in Montreal for four years and then moving to Colorado Springs."

"So, other than tell me my life story, what else are you trying to do?" Robert asked. Unlike Edd, he wasn't tied to his chair. However, he was facing his enemy, Damien, who was sitting in a chair that had magically appeared right in front of him.

"Well, that's where we begin, the beginning." Damien cracked a mischievous smile.

* * *

Next Chapter: Imperial Part 3


	8. Imperial Part 3

Chapter 8: Imperial Part 3: Devastation

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon or Ed, Edd n Eddy.

* * *

Robert felt uncomfortable in his seat. The air in the room seemed cold and tense, feeling more like an interrogation chamber at a police station than anything. His enemy Damien was sitting down in front of him, staring as he asked questions.

"Well, let me get to the point. Does anyone know why you had to start living with your friend Zack?" Damien inquired.

"Because my mom went to jail."

"What did she do to go there?"

"None of your business."

"On the contrary, it is my business. She murdered a man."

Robert was surprised. "How did you know that?"

"Newspaper. A certain Megan Kanker, resident of Colorado Springs shot and killed her significant other."

"The guy was an abusing dirtbag. She did it in self defense."

"And then fled the scene. That doesn't sound like something someone innocent would do."

Robert didn't know how to argue with that.

"Not to mention the circumstances of your birth. What was the status of your mother's relationship with your father at the time?"

"None of your business."

"Of course. So you're illegitimate."  
"Yeah. Now seriously, I don't get where you're going with this."

"Simply put, if you're the product of an illegitimate liaison and weren't wanted in the first place, then why are you here? Why didn't your mother get rid of you the first time she realized you're existence or at least put you up for adoption? She was a single college student from a poor family."

"You don't know my mom. She didn't feel right about any of that stuff and felt that she should live with her mistake."

"The mistake being that you're a product of a one night stand and she wasn't using any contraceptives."

Robert looked at his enemy for a second. "So, you're trying to say I shouldn't exist."

"You don't deserve to exist. Your father was married at the time."

"Okay, that's really low. I'm not responsible for my parent's sins. I'm just the product of them."

"Exactly. What are your beliefs as far as adultery?"

"I consider it as a serious matter. I wouldn't do that and if I was married and my wife cheated on me, then I would divorce her unless she swore she wasn't going to do it again and lived up to that."

"So, if everyone had your attitude on that, you wouldn't exist?"

"Probably not but look at how the world is. Now, can you stop this bloody tirade?"

"NO." Damien was getting intense but still calm. "This means you have no right to exist. Then there are the numerous wrongs you've committed over the years. One of which involves your close friend who is currently trapped in the digital world."

"Yeah, what about him?"

"What does it mean to be a friend?"

"Be there for them. Help them out in a time of need. Be a companion."

"Are you any of those things?"

"Yeah."

"NO, you're not. You see, your friend is still trapped in the Digital World and you refuse to go back and get him out."

"I can't. Going in alone would be suicide." Robert's voice was starting to rise.

"Oh, yeah? Then why am I still standing?"  
"You're with the Empire."

"How is your friend still alive?"

"I have no idea?"

Damien chuckled a bit. "It's simple. He's working for the Empire himself. He's currently on a secret mission looking for some mythical being that's called Yggdrasil. Now why would he serve the Empire? What would make him betray his friends and work for some institution that you have considered enemies from your first dealing with it?"

"I don't know," Robert practically yelled. Damien was strangely calm.

"No you don't. The reasons are simple; he joined the Emperor, dealing out his murderous ideals for survival. There's no way he would have been able to survive in the Digital World without his help."

Robert was still finding that hard to digest. What made his friend do this? There had to be something more.

"Then there's the very nature of your friendship. You became friends with him out of selfishness."

"No I didn't!"

Damien held up his green and yellow digivice, opening it up to show the analyzer screen. On it was a video log Robert had made. In it, you could see from his bare shoulders on up. _"Oh, man, I'm so relieved Zack let me stay with him. I just have to stay with him a few months and then I can just leave. Heck, it'll be good having all the free food."_

"Things changed," Robert stated.

"Sure? What about just after you came back?"

Damien showed another video. Damien looked the same. "I'm so glad to be out of that horrible place. It was a pain. There's no way I'm going back to the Digital World to save my friend. For all I know, he's able to take care of himself."

"So much for you being there to help him in a time of need."

Robert was furious. "How did you find these videos?"

"Oh, simple: I was sorting through your files one morning and I just happened to come across them."

Robert was angry. "You violated my privacy!"

"Welcome to the information age. You deserved it anyway. Oh, and there's how that video was taken at your friend's house. You claimed not to have seen his father since before you left for the Digital World. That was a bold-faced lie. In fact, he paid for your trip here."

Robert had a hard time controlling his anger. "Shut up."

"Well, you are the one that lied numerous times, keeping secrets that shouldn't have been kept. You even know where the gate that Chaun and his friend Garrett used to get to the Digital World is and yet you've kept that a secret even from those who need the information."

"They're not ready!" Robert was yelling at this point.

"They think they are. You heard about how they found some of the crests and how now that Eddy guy's two loser friends have them now. It's only a matter of time before one of them reaches the Perfect Level. But of course, you had to keep the gate from them. You had to keep them from going to the Digital World by using empty deception. All this despite having beliefs that lying is wrong. On top of that, you're a bad friend, you shouldn't exist, and you're the most pitiful example of humanity I've ever seen."

Robert burst forward faster than Damien thought possible, yelling. His self-control was gone. He attempted to punch Damien square in the jaw but the guy disappeared. "Where are you!" he screamed, a black light starting to emanate from his digivice as he punched several more holograms of his enemy, becoming more and more angry after each one.

"This shows it. You're the biggest hypocrite in the entire amusement park. Even I, despite my own dark secrets wouldn't lash out like this." Damien's voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Show yourself you coward!"

"Now why would I do that?"

"NOW!"

* * *

Elsewhere, the three Adult levels that belonged to Edd's team were constantly dodging Phelesmon's attacks, trying to reason him out of his current plans. "You don't have to have us do this. Just run away from Damien!" Stingmon said, dodging the devil's pitchfork.

"He'll still find me! He sees me as weak and wants to replace me eventually so why should I bother."  
"You do have something to live for. What would Darkdramon think? Would he give up like you have?" Reppamon asked.

Phelesmon thought about it for a second. "No, he wouldn't." Just then, Galgomon started shooting at Phelesmon uncontrollably.

"Galgomon, what do you think you're doing?" Stingmon chided the dog-rabbit, who just kept on shooting, even though his bullets barely had any effect. Then a black aura started encompassing Galgomon and a sphere of data formed around him with fractal code going along the outside of the sphere. The sphere cracked open, revealing a Rapidmon, but this wasn't like the golden-colored one from before. He had black armor. The three Digimon gasped.

BlackRapidmon started launching missiles from the cartridge on his back, heading straight for Phelesmon.

* * *

Back in Peach Creek, BlackWarGreymon was staring down an Angemon. Not that the angel-like Digimon was much of a threat, mind you; it was just unexpected to see the Digimon evolve just like that. Sometimes he wondered if Daniel's Tsukaimon would evolve into something like this if Daniel had better temperament, something that wasn't going to happen anytime soon in his opinion. It would look better for the group if someone broke the whole 'devil theme' the Alias III had.

"You know that you don't stand a chance against me," BlackWarGreymon said in a brooding voice. "Just surrender."

Just then, BlackWarGreymon was attacked from the side with an ice attack. Since it was so unexpected, it did some nasty damage, searing the armor plating on that side of his body. Sarah just looked on from behind with a shocked look on her face, duct tape covering her mouth.

BlackWarGreymon got up and looked at his attacker: MetalGarurumon. "Well, well, well, why would I expect anything different," the brooding armored dragon-man said. "You always liked strategies. Too bad you weren't necessarily gifted in that area."

"Step away from the kids," Eric said, walking up behind his Digimon.

"Why should I?"  
"Okay, here's the thing: you've done some pretty low things over the years but this is just outrageous. If you have any sense of integrity left, you'll just leave the two kids alone."

BlackWarGreymon's answer was done in action, as he charged forward, slashing Angemon across the chest, causing devolution, and then, after dodging another Cocytus Breath, proceeded to use the Dramon Killer gauntlets on his hands to slice off MetalGarurumon's wings. Then the Digimon flew up. Eric knew what was happening and directed MetalGarurumon to proceed directly to the middle of the cul-de-sac, which the mechanized wolf did. BlackWarGreymon created a large energy ball with his gauntlets and launched it at MetalGarurumon while the cybernetic wolf opened up some rocket launchers on his legs, hitting him almost straight on and creating a nasty crater in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Then BlackWarGreymon proceeded to go straight down there and after tossing Eric out of the way into a yard across the cul-de-sac, proceeded to tie up a shocked Jimmy and Patamon. After that he looked at Jimmy's digivice.

_Hmm… he has a crest nearby. _BlackWarGreymon removed his gauntlets to check the digivice and figure out where the crest is.

It was in Eddy's bedroom. BlackWarGreymon smirked inside and then proceeded to fly over to Eddy's house, break into his room, take the box of crests, open it and take out the green crest that was glowing.

It was the crest of Hope.

BlackWarGreymon proceeded to toss the remaining two crests aside and get out of there. He didn't really care if the kids found a way to evolve their Digimon to the Perfect Level since he had a nice bunch of Megas that he could use. After leaving Eddy's room, he went over to Jimmy, Sarah and Patamon and tossed one of several space-time oscillation bombs he had with him and throwing the two kids and the Digimon into it. The coordinates on the thing was set to inside the imperial dungeon and the warden was given orders as to what to do with them so that wasn't a worry.

After the temporary gate closed, BlackWarGreymon pulled his gauntlets back on and looked at the pitiful and badly scraped up blond tamer treating his now child-level Digimon in the middle of the cul-de-sac. He shrugged. _That's what you get for betraying the Emperor. _BlackWarGreymon smiled inside again and flew off toward Mondo-a-go-go. He knew how the battle was going and that it wasn't going well for his group.

* * *

Tears were crawling down Eric's face as he looked at his now Child-level Digimon, Gabumon, who was seriously injured. The Digimon was barely conscious and parts of its pelt were now gone. It was starting to blur.

"Don't worry, Eric, you'll find another partner. Derek got one, didn't he?"

Eric slowly said, "I don't want another partner, Gabumon. I just want you. Don't die." He lowered his head a bit more. "Please."

He remembered all the times they had together and how he first met the Digimon in the Village of Beginnings as an orange ball with a spike on its head named Tsunomon so long ago when he was first summoned to the Digital World. In a lot of ways, despite being the one with the crest of friendship, Gabumon was one of the only few friends he had over the years, other than Chaun's bother Chuck whom he called on a regular basis. He didn't want it to end. He didn't want his Digimon to start over, and as his Digimon blurred more and more, he prayed that it wouldn't happen.

Then a ring of yellow light formed around him and his Digimon and Gabumon got up. Eric sat there surprised. The parts of the pelt that were missing rematerialized and they were both reinvigorated. The energy flowing through their bodies felt good as everything went to light.

A few minutes later, they were gone and the police arrived. They had a hard time believing the story about a flying black man in a dragon costume coming after the kids, but they put out a kidnapping alert anyway due to the obvious damage to the houses.

A large, broad shoulder humanoid mega-level watched on and then tossed a space-time oscillation bomb, making his way to the Digital World again.

* * *

Eddy's team won when Sealsdramon cut off one of Gigadramon's wings, causing data to pour out of the resulting wound and the Digimon to dematerialize back into its Child form, Tsukaimon. The small rodent fell towards the ground, but was caught by his Tamer, Daniel. Then Seadramon devolved. "Boy, I'm spent," he said, jumping into his tamer's arms.

"Rolf's new sea monster did an excellent job tonight. We should celebrate with the armpit rub of victory!" Rolf yelled out, trying to rub what passed for an armpit on Betamon's forelimbs.

"Remember, we still have the other two tamers to worry about," Sealsdramon said, running toward where the girls were.

"Yeah, what's with him devolving like that?" Eddy asked, annoyed.

"By that point, Betamon was already asleep. "Rolf's monster is having a hard time sleeping at night."

"Okay, whatever. See you later. Sorry about Guilmon, Kevin!" Eddy yelled out as he followed his Digimon.

Kevin stood there. It was truly a pyrrhic victory for him. Here he was, unable to help with anything and yet Eddy was pushing ahead like he had no limits.

"Don't worry, Kevin, we'll be able to help out soon," Gigimon said, trying not to fall asleep.

Kevin nodded, tears starting to stream down his face.

"You know, after all this time, I think I might feel like going home," Daniel said, smiling and holding Tsukaimon in his arms and accepting defeat. "This whole business in the Digital World with the emperor and stuff is… is stupid. I just want my old life back. Hang out with my friends, go to school, sleep in my own bed, taste my mom's cooking. This stuff with the Emperor and whatever doesn't matter anymore. I wish that I would have just stayed with my friends. At least most of them are back in the real world."

Kevin didn't understand why the blond guy was saying all this. Rolf though could relate, though not in the same way. "You know, sometimes Rolf yearns for the old country himself."

"Hmmph. Why do you talk like that with the third person and everything?" Daniel asked out of curiosity.

"What does blond villain boy mean by third person? You're the third person here."

"Uh, forget it. You know, after all that thinking, I think Eddy's other brother may have been right in telling my parents about my bad habit. Heck, he told me to tell them about it first and he made the point about spending too much money on that crap. Then there's how it doesn't taste good in the first place. Man, what made me think it was cool in the first place? I only did it because some kids at school were doing it when I hung out with them."

"Why are you talking about all this?" Kevin asked.

"I lost. Obviously the Emperor's gonna want an explanation for why I lost both times I went to the real world." Daniel frowned. "I wouldn't be surprised if he just strands me here."

Daniel knew that he was going to have to explain to his dad what had happened someday. He was sure that Zack's sister Jessica had already told everyone everything there is to know about what happened in the Digital World right down to Daniel's betrayal. Oh well, he was ready to face it.

* * *

Eddy arrived as LadyDevimon was defeated by a joint attack from Kyuubimon, Togemon and Aquilamon. She fell to the ground devolving to her child form Plotmon, a small floppy eared dog. Lee caught the Digimon and then looked at Eddy. "Well, if it isn't my boyfriend. I see you've gotten taller."

Eddy ignored her. "Hey, is everyone ready to go see what the others are doing?" he asked the girls and Ed.

"Yeah, it's about time we got rid of that psycho's Digimon," Rachelle said, referring to Damien and walking past Eddy with Kyuubimon.

"That was so cool. Aquilamon helped beat LadyDevimon," Ed said elated as ever, walking past Eddy with his Digimon hovering overhead. "But Ed is tired."

"Don't worry, lumpy, we'll get back home and sleep when this is all over with." Then Eddy turned to Nazz, attempting to score points with the local hottie. "So, Nazz, I see you did a good job over there."

"Oh, yeah, dude. It's so good to get this all out of the way. Now we just have to get rid of this freaky Goth dude's Digimon and then the real enemy."

"Yeah. So, what's the Mega level supposed to be?" Eddy asked walking along side Nazz.

"Huh? You don't know what that level is? What episode are you on?"

"Um, they just defeated that one vampire Digimon with Hikari's digimon." Eddy didn't like watching subs but since that was all that Chaun had, he endured them. Besides, this was research.

"Yeah, Agumon and Gabumon evolve to Mega in the next episode when they have to fight the resurrected VenomMyotismon."

"You watched the dub, didn't you? How'd you get it?"

"I saw it on TV like forever ago."

"Man, you're lucky. I wish I had the dub." Then Sealsdramon and Togemon stopped in their tracks. "Huh? What's going on?"

"There's a Digimon up ahead. I sense hatred fueling it. It's not one of the Alias'," Togemon said. "I don't like this feeling."

"It's an opponent like I've never encountered before," Sealsdramon said, growling.

"Let's take him out then!" Eddy exclaimed.

"Wait, is it a Mega?" Nazz asked.

"No, it's another Perfect. This should be a piece of cake!"

After BlackRapidmon obliterated Phelesmon and loaded its data, it turned toward the others. Pointing his missile launcher at them. The blackness around them dissolved into the park and all three tamers were where they were last.

* * *

Robert was still on a rampage when the illusion ended. "Where are you!"

"Man, just calm down. Whatever nightmare that he put you through is over," Chaun said, laying his hand on his friend's shoulder from behind him. Unfortunately it didn't have the desired effect and Robert turned around and punched him in the face, causing the black kid to fall down to the ground.

When he saw what he had done Robert snapped out of his rageknew what he was doing. "Oh, crap, I'm sorry!" He looked around and saw Edd passed out on the ground as well as his Digimon heading straight for the others.

"You better be," Chaun said, getting up. He had a massive bruise on his left cheek. "Now, seriously, I don't know what got into you but, man!" Chaun looked at BlackRapidmon. "Oh, great, you made him dark evolve or something. He's supposed on our side!"

Robert just stood there, realizing what he had done. He looked around and Damien wasn't even in sight.

"What the heck's happening?" Eddy yelled out from behind Chaun, walking up with Sealsdramon.

"Oh, no way, dude! Is that Rapidmon?" Nazz asked.

"Okay, does anybody mind telling me what happened?" Rachelle demanded.

"Oh, cool! It's BlackRapidmon!" Ed exclaimed. "Robert must have dark digivolved him like Tai did with SkullGreymon."

"God, what have I done?" Robert asked, sorrowfully. Just then the Digimon all stopped.

"Something's coming," Kyuubimon remarked, "Something big."

Eddy looked at his digivice. Right behind them was a red and black signal. "Derek." He looked behind him to find his brother, about ten yards away with a BlackAgumon by his side.  
"Oh, man, this is so lame. How could you manage to defeat all three of my best fighters?" he asked. "You're all just a bunch of little runts from the cul-de-sac." He broke out in mocking laughter for a few seconds and then turned serious again. "Oh, my, hasn't the little pipsqueak grown." Everyone's face turned serious as they looked upon the older sibling with anger.

"What do you want, bro?" Eddy asked.

"Nothing much. I already got what I needed, anyway, so you can just call this the just desserts." Eddy's brother smiled, holding out his digivice and sliding a blue card, something that would cause him to go straight to the Perfect Level. "This should be fun!"

"BlackAgumon evolve!"

"MetalTyrannomon!" The Perfect Level Digimon was a grotesque monstrosity of various mechanical parts attached to a large pale-looking dinosaur. These included various hoses and metal. BlackRapidmon just went straight for him, unreasoning. The cyborg dinosaur just smacked the black cyborg warrior to the side, prompting devolution into Gummimon, a small head with one horn attached to what looked like some sort of small skirt of skin.

"Gummimon!" Robert yelled, running to his Digimon.

"Just think of this as Uncle, played with monsters from another world. Now, who's next?" Derek asked.

"Come on, guys, we can all beat this one if we just work together," Eddy cheered on, moving out of the battle zone. He just about tripped over Edd, lying on the ground. As the Digimon except for Reppamon, who decided to stay at his partner's side, ran over to attack MetalTyrannomon, Eddy reached down and felt his friend's pulse. The pulse was fast and his friend was breathing erratically.

"Reppamon, take Edd to a hospital or something," Eddy said.

"I can't hold him on my back stably."

Just then, they turned around to see the Digimon getting filleted by a laser coming from the cyborg Digimon. "No!" Eddy gasped.

"So, this is the next generation of tamers. Not real impressive. Especially you and your girlfriend, pipsqueak," Eddy's brother commented snidely. It was starting to sprinkle.

Eddy cursed under his breath, realizing he had to stand up to his brother or else all his friends were going to be pretty much done for. The various Adult Level Digimon were all reverting back to their Child forms as he walked on by. "What's the point? Why the heck are you doing this?"

His brother just looked at him for a few seconds before taking his sunglasses off. "Oh, so I can't come to the real world and have fun once in a while?"

"You _can_, but treating my friends like crap? How is that fun?"

Derek smiled with one side of his mouth. "Oh, please, as if you didn't do that before, pipsqueak. You and I got more in common than you know."

Eddy looked straight at his brother. He realized that he would have had to confront him sooner or later, but since his bro's the Emperor himself, it ended up sooner than he hoped. In the time since the previous summer, Eddy's been trying to distance himself from his brother's twisted ideology, though he hadn't gone as far as he had hoped.

Then he remembered something: his crest. _Maybe, if I can evolve my Digimon to Perfect,_ he thought, pulling it out and looking at it, _but Commandramon…_He looked over at the cyborg reptile Digimon, lying on the ground.

"Yeah, don't even think about it. You don't have the courage to activate my old crest," Eddy's brother chided.

Eddy realized what that meant. "This isn't your old crest."

"Huh? You got one of the others?"

"Yeah, I got Kindness." Eddy showed his brother the lavender colored crest and smiled.

Eddy's brother just laughed out loud. "What! You're so lame that you got the crest of Kindness instead of the crest of Courage! Oh, man. How can you possibly lead this team with that crest? That ain't a leader crest you know. It belonged to Ken, the Digimon Emperor in season two."

"I'm not that far into the series yet."

Eddy's brother walked up to him. Eddy looked up at his brother's psychotic smile, his own height only reaching about as far as the twenty-something's bearded chin. "Figures." Then Derek's right arm latched out to his right side, holding up Ed by the neck. He looked over to the red-haired oaf, still holding onto the sinister appearance. "Oh, if it isn't the stupid one of your group. How this one got into your legion of Chosen-wannabes is beyond me. What did you do, just give him a partner?"

Just then, Eddy headbutted his brother in the chest, taking the slightly overweight bully by surprise and causing him to release his friend. Derek gasped for air for a second, but recovered quickly, continuing his confrontation.

"Tu gemelo no habría hecho eso."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Eddy asked, confused about what the towering enemy just said.

"Oh, just a little bit of gratuitous Spanish, that's all. Funny, _he_ can speak it fluently and so can I, but you can't. Oh, do you know about him?"

Eddy's eyes widened. "What's his name?"

"Now why would I tell you that…" MetalTyrannomon towered behind its tamer, resulting in everyone else keeping a safe distance. "…especially when none of you can evolve to the Perfect stage? Oh, my, look at the two of you. So similar and yet so different. Man, why you would have a Digimon is beyond me, you're so incompetent, pipsqueak. Besides, when did you get a full head of hair?"

Eddy didn't answer him. "You know what? I don't think you're here to completely screw us over."

"Um, I already did that. Besides, why the heck would I delete your Digimon? I already got what I came for. Then again, I could take that Reppamon as a bonus, since it was formerly a Royal Knight."

"Yeah? What did you end up getting anyway?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just a celestial." Eddy's brother smiled. "I would ask you to join my team but since you can't even go to the perfect level, it would be a waste of space unless you hacked your digivice. Even then, the Digimon all revert after fifteen minutes so it would be worthless in a long battle."

"Yeah? Like I'd ever join you anyway!"

"Of course you wouldn't." Derek looked around. "Funny how all your stupid friends are just standing around and doing nothing. I can't imagine why not. See you later, pipsqueak." Derek threw a space-time oscillation bomb behind him, running into it along with his Digimon. Just as Eddy was about to run in after him, it shut.

"Man! Why does my brother have to be a total jerk?" Eddy looked over at Edd and Commandramon just then, and realized there were more important things to think about. He walked over to Edd and attempted to pick him up. Of course Eddy wasn't strong enough to do that. It was going to be difficult getting everyone home but it could be done. Eddy felt that the priority was getting his friend to a hospital or something. Nobody had any cell-phones so they couldn't call 911. On top of that, it was starting to rain and there was lightning in the distance.

Just when Eddy was about to drop his friend, Ed came and helped, and so did Nazz. Then Chaun and Rachelle came as well, the group putting Edd on Reppamon's back.

Just then, Eddy's crest started to glow and Edd was becoming conscious again.

"Did we win?" he asked. None of the others knew how to explain their loss.

* * *

Later on, at daybreak, the sun rose beyond the dark rainclouds in the area. Most of the Digimon had recovered enough to be able to take the kids home, except for Gigimon and Gummimon. The kids were all at the gate, ready to board the adult or armor level Digimon that most of them used to get there. Just one thing.

"Man, this place is a mess!" Eddy said, looking at the ruined amusement park. "We didn't do all this did we?"

"Dude, I think I remember seeing this in the paper last summer when we got back from meeting your brother," Nazz stated. "I wonder what happened."

"Maybe Eddy's brother's Digimon digivolved and destroyed it or something," Ed suggested.

"Now, that does make sense," Reppamon said.

The thought that Eddy's brother probably had his Digimon with him when they ran across him gave everyone shivers. They started to mount their Digimon now and Eddy was on top of Quetzalmon with Chaun and Commandramon.

_Someday, bro, I'll get back at you for all that you did…_

Now they just had to prepare to go to the Digital World.

* * *

Next Chapter: Recovery

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to get this chapter out. Originally I was going to release it early on Friday, but I wasn't comfortable with it and had to go out of town for the weekend to go to King Tut and Water World in Denver. Any tips or criticisms would be appreciated.


	9. Recovery

Chapter 9: Recovery

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon or Ed, Edd n Eddy, so don't bug me about that.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for all your reviews. Oh, and thanks to Charmander Hero for helping me break the ten mark. The last story I put on here got four for the first two chapters and then didn't get any more for the next three.

* * *

In the meeting room in the imperial fortress in the digital world, the Alias III were going over their report with the emperor. "We lost all three battles and my Digimon was loaded," Damien spoke with very little emotion.

"It shows how far they've gotten when they can beat the crap out of your Digimon. Oh, man, you should have seen them get screwed over by MetalTyrannomon though. That was a sight," the emperor said. "Of course, you were only supposed to delay them as long as possible, anyway, which you did. Now Damien, about your Digimon: how the heck is it that you were the only one to get it deleted?"

"I managed to get one of the tamers to evolve his Digimon into a dark version of its natural Perfect form. After that, the Digimon simply attacked my Digimon in a rage and since it wasn't reasoning, choosing to rely on primal instincts, it loaded the data. My Digimon didn't really want to live anyway, so it wasn't a big loss."

"What?" Daniel exclaimed, shocked at what he heard. "None of our Digimon were lost before. Are you meaning to say you planned it?"

"Yes, that is precisely what I did. Besides, getting rid of Impmon opens the door for a new partner. I do have an idea for that."

Daniel couldn't stand it anymore. He did things that were extremely low himself, but what Damien did was something so beyond anything Daniel did that his conscience couldn't stand it. He got up and stormed out of the room.

* * *

"Figures I'd find you here," Lee said as the automatic doors closed behind her. They were in the infirmary, where spare data would be entered into their Digimon after battles to heal them. Tsukaimon was floating in a small tank of liquid and Daniel was watching on. He didn't acknowledge Lee, however.

"Gee, you could at least say something."

Daniel looked at her. "Yeah? Here's the thing. Damien's an…" Daniel had to think about his next word, so as not to invoke the Digital World's swear filter. "Damien's a complete amoral dirtbag."  
"Tell me something I don't know."

"I'm going to leave Alias." Lee gasped.

"Wait, so just because of one incident, you're going to leave Alias?"

"Not one, but a long string of incidents. I admit, I'm not a model citizen myself, but this is just outrageous. I swear, if Derek doesn't do anything about Damien, that idiot's going to attempt to take over the Empire someday."

"Please, he's gotta get a Mega first, and he don't even have a partner Digimon."

"Chances are he planned it out. Do you even remember how he got here? He just came and helped the two of us fight off a Chimeramon one time, did a few other things and like that had a position in the Empire's elite guard. The guy's been planning his rise to power for a while now, I know it. Just how Derek's been ignoring this for so long is beyond me."

Lee knew he was right. Daniel was a pretty smart guy and even though he made tons of mistakes, he seems to learn from them more often than most of the others. "Okay. So what are you gonna do?"  
Daniel looked at Tsukaimon. "Simple. I'm going ask the Emperor to let me join the Yggdrasil search party."

* * *

The room had numerous posters of alt-rock and j-pop bands, a couple of anime posters. a random poster of a blond country singer above his bed (even though he didn't like country), a bookcase with action figures from obscure animes as well as a few Transformers in robot mode including a giant Unicron. The walls were blue and the bed had some stuffed animals on it including a Pikachu (WTH!).

The song in the background was in Japanese. He didn't know why he liked listening to the song 'Go!' from the Naruto OST but he did. Somehow hearing something so random while he's trying to get rid of a nasty headache while lying on his bed helps. Besides, he needed the exposure to Japanese since he was learning it. 2042 Kanji, all the Kana and thousands of sentences can only get you so far.

Yes, he was a nerd. True, he had his crowning moments of tight, but those were few and far between and mostly involved owning everyone in football at school by scoring a touchdown. Oh, well, at least he was willing to work out.

The feeling of a large stubby insect leg on his arm made him jump up off his bed. "Dude!" Then Chaun realized it was just his partner Wormmon. "Oh."

Chaun disconnected his CD player while listening to his partner tell him what was up. "Sorry, I startled you, but your mom has been calling you for the last few minutes."

"Oh, okay man, thanks." Chaun opened his door.

"Is anything wrong?" Wormmon asked.

Chaun took a deep breath. "Well, my team got tortured by Damien. None of the others was willing to give me any details, but I had bugs crawling on me." _Not to mention the eighties music. One can only listen to Europe or Culture Club for so long without going insane. Then there's Prince. Man, he's the worst._

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I admit it, I'm afraid of bugs. Don't worry, you don't scare me." Chaun cracked a smile and then left the room.

* * *

A few minutes later, Chaun was finished with the chores his mother had him do and he walked into his room to find his little sister on his bed and his little brother on the computer. Not to mention some other things: namely the music that was playing. "Did I ever say any of you could come in here?" Chaun yelled.

"Hey, I'm just expanding your tastes in music to stuff that's cool," his sister said, playing around with the Pikachu. She had braided hair and was wearing a purple shirt and some long blue jeans. Wormmon was hiding under the bed, hoping that none of his partner's siblings would find him.

"Sorry, sis, but Justin's Beaver ain't cool!"

"His name is Justin Bieber," she said as Chaun walked over to his stereo system and ejected the disk. "Hey!"

"If I hear 'Baby' one more time I swear my head's gonna explode. Now get out of my room." Chaun tossed the CD at her.

"Make me." Chaun grabbed a case from his pile of CD's labeled 'Drunken Lullabies', took out the CD and put it in the stereo. _I know they can't stand the awesomeness that is Flogging Molly,_ he thought as he pushed the play button. All the sudden fiddles and drums started playing from the stereo.

"Oh, great, it's that horrible Scottish music again!" his sister exclaimed, yelling over the music and running out of his room.

He muttered "It's Irish" after she left. Then there was his brother. Just as the singer started singing in his Irish brogue, he turned off the stereo and walked over to his little brother. "Okay, I know you like to come in here and watch Digimon, but here's the thing, you need my permission. Now, how the heck did you get on my computer, anyway?"

"Wormmon gave me the password. I told him about that Digimon series I heard about at school and then he told me the password."

Now, Chaun had never revealed his Digimon's secret to his family, so how his little brother knew about him confused him. "Wormmon?" The small insect Digimon came out from under the bed.

"He knew I was real. A couple of kids from school told him."

Now Chaun was really confused. "Okay?"

"There's this fan-made series online called 'Digimon Empire' and you star in it. Then there's the spin-off series 'Digimon Scammers.'"

Chaun couldn't believe his ears. "You better show me this." His brother pressed play on the YouTube video and a really well-animated scene came on. It was him while he was in the Digital World. He remembered the time. It was when he had first met Wormmon and his Digimon evolved into Stingmon. Stingmon was flying him away from their first battle. He looked at the title: Digimon Empire Episode 2 [3/3].

He had to watch more of this.

* * *

_Why would he want to do that? What motivation did he have in treating me the way he did and questioning my existence? He obviously wasn't some sort of Fundamentalist who felt I was going to be damned because of my parents. _Robert was watching TV. He wasn't really paying attention, even though it was his usual channel: The History Channel. Eddy didn't like watching it one bit and thought it was boring, but he wasn't in the room at the moment so that didn't matter.

Eddy walked out of his room in his usual yellow shirt and long baggy pants. He looked at the TV and looked at his friend, looking comatose in front of the TV and hardly blinking. He waved his hand in front of his friend's face. He still didn't budge.

"Terriermon!" Eddy yelled and the floppy-eared dog-rabbit ran down the stairs, having recently evolved from Gummimon after breakfast. "What the heck is going on with your partner? He hasn't talked all day."

"Um, I think it has something to do with that encounter he had with pasty Goth boy," the Digimon replied.

Eddy knew about Damien, having been there when they first met him in the trailer park, but other than that he didn't really know much about the guy. Did Robert somehow have a connection with him?

Eddy's mom walked into the room, eyeing her son with his Digimon. Something was disconcerting about the creatures and they seemed to remind her of her oldest boy and how he brought his Digimon from the digital world.

Right now, she had something else on her mind. "Eddy, did you clean your bathroom?" she asked.

"Uh, sorry, I forgot. Why do you need it cleaned so badly anyway?"

His mom's eyes narrowed and she looked right at her son. "Remember, your cousins are coming over today. We don't want our guests to walk into a dirty bathroom, do we? Get Commandramon to help you."

Eddy was scared. There was no one else in the world that could scare him with their looks other than his mother and brother. It didn't help that their stares were so similar. Eddy just ran to the bathroom and started cleaning it, taking Terriermon and Commandramon with him.

His mom, however, remained in the living room. She sat down on the couch next to her son's friend and looked at him and then at the TV. "You know, it's pretty obvious you're not really watching this."

There was no response from Robert. Eddy's mom had reservations about having Robert stay with her family, but since he was so polite, she and her husband allowed it. He was more willing to do stuff around the house than Eddy, which gave him more points. However, she did wonder what was taking so long for him to call his friend from wherever he was from. He never actually told them where he lived right before coming to Peach Creek, though they at least knew he was Canadian born, well at least the parents did. Other than that, nothing much.

"So, what's wrong?" she asked. He moved. It was a simple shrug but he moved. "Don't tell me you don't know. I know you boys better than that."

Robert replied. "Yeah. Having two kids of your own probably does that to you."

The mom smiled. "I guess. I was only eighteen when I gave birth to Derek, though, and didn't know anything about how to raise a child. I wasn't much of a disciplinarian either."

Robert guessed something. "So, that means that Derek was the reject child that didn't turn out right, huh?"

Eddy's mom rolled her eyes. "He probably would have turned out well. It's just… a lot of things happened around the time Eddy was born."

Robert nodded for a second. "I can't imagine it being as tumultuous as mine. I never knew my birth father and my mom was living hundreds of miles away from him. Last night, I ran into a guy named Damien, who seemed to know everything about me, down to my parental history. It turns out my dad was married to someone else. Pretty screwed up, eh?"

Mrs. McGee paused for a second. "Yes, but what can you do? Those were your parents' mistakes and all you can do is learn from them. It doesn't make you any less of a person."

"Yeah… but then he claimed that I shouldn't exist and that I was dragging everyone down by being here. He also pointed out some pretty selfish things I did and said. For instance, I have a really good friend named Zack that is still in the Digital World and yet at the first chance I had to go over there, I refused."

Eddy's mom thought about what he said for a second. She didn't know who this Zack kid was, but she was sure that whatever happened was out of Robert's control. Then again, there were mistakes that she had made… mistakes that cost her dearly because of carelessness on her part.

_Mom… Dad… Samuel… Clayton…_ She thought, remembering the names of loved ones of long ago. She organized her thoughts into what she was going to say and what she wasn't and then started talking. "I'm sure that whatever happened, you did what seemed best for the moment. Don't let any of the criticism get to you. Just move on and learn from what happened and if you did do something wrong, try to correct it."

Robert was sobbing. He wiped off his face and nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. At least Zack isn't dead so you can still find him, right?"

Robert nodded again. "Yeah." He got up and started to walk upstairs, knowing what he needed to do.

Eddy's mom started to smile.

* * *

In the bathroom, Eddy was relaxing on a chair he brought in while the Digimon did his job for him. "So, do we at least get paid for this?" Terriermon asked sarcastically, scrubbing the bathtub.

"You wish! Good job on the mirrors, Commandramon!"

"Anytime! This is just training, anyway."

Terriermon didn't buy it. He wanted his Tamer to come in and help or relieve him or something. His prayers were answered when Robert came in. He was astounded at his friend's laziness.

"Um, Eddy, why is _my_ Digimon doing _your_ work?"

"Hey, free labor."

"Are you kidding! Terriermon, give the cleaning rag to Eddy. He should be doing it instead."

Terriermon happily tossed the rag onto Eddy's head and ran out the door with Robert. "What's that about?"

"I don't know. I don't think you should be giving my Digimon orders except when it's absolutely needed in battle. I need to get out of the house anyway." Robert left the room with Terriermon in tow.

_I wonder what's going on. Oh well, that means I can do what I need to. _Eddy smiled evilly. They were pretty much done with the bathroom anyway.

* * *

Eddy snooped through his brother's room where Robert was staying and went into his friend's backpack, pulling out a yearbook. He saw Robert looking through it before and knew that he had gone to some elite middle school or something. "Colorado Springs Academy for Advanced Students, eh?" Eddy started with the sixth grade section, and not finding anyone who looked like himself there, moved onto the seventh grade section.

He found him, and his name was Clayton, and he looked just like Eddy did now. Eddy didn't know how his twin was blessed with that, maybe he got a digivice earlier or something.

"So, why are you going through Robert's stuff?" Commandramon asked from behind him, sniffing the room.

"Oh, nothing. I just needed to check this thing. My brother went to school with Robert, you know."

"Really? That evil guy from last night?"

"Oh, heck no. I have two brothers."

"Oh. So, can we go to the junkyard and play target practice?"

"Uh, maybe later." Then Eddy thought about Edd. _How is he doing, I wonder?

* * *

_

Edd opened his front door to Eddy. "Oh, hello Eddy. Come on in."

"Hey, Double D." He walked in and sat on Edd's couch. "So, how are things going since that run in with freaky emo guy?"

Eddy's reminder made Edd a little uneasy. "I'd much rather not talk about it."

"Hey, no problem. Robert doesn't want to talk about what happened to him earlier. He was just comatose on the couch watching something boring on the History Channel after breakfast this morning."

"From what I hear, he was on a rampage after whatever it was that Damien did to him. It's hard to believe, considering he had such self-control when Kevin confronted him."

"So, what do you think happened to him?"

"Well, considering my predicament, I can't imagine. The Alias III disappeared rather quickly last night, don't you think?"

"Yeah, really."

"Did you hear about what happened to Jimmy and Sarah?"

Eddy had no idea, so Edd related what he had heard about a tall black man in a dragon outfit kidnapping them. He had also told Eddy about Eric's unexplained disappearance. "Man, that is weird. So any word on who the black dude was?"

Edd pulled out a piece of paper from a folder he had on the table. It was a Digimon with the name BlackWarGreymon. "Quite the coincidence, don't you think? It's a shame that the people in the cul-de-sac have such a racially charged idea and that the police are trying to tie the kidnapping to several inner-city gangs. Of course, they wouldn't believe that it was the cause of a Digimon anyway."

Edd and Eddy glanced over at Commandramon and Kudamon, playing a game of chess. Kudamon had apparently learned it from Edd and was attempting to teach Commandramon, who seemed to be picking it up rather fast.

"So, what else is new?" Eddy asked.

"Well, I've been cataloging the various features of the digivice. I have an acronym that will help to differentiate it from the other digivices that are on the show. The D-Macs. How do you like it?"

"Let me guess, because it helps us to reach our maximum potential?"

"Um, no. It comes from Metamorphosis and Card System. Metamorphosis because it's not really evolution and Card because that we use often in battle and because it's a feature that it only shares with the D-Arc from Digimon Tamers, which in my opinion is the most interesting series. I added the System part so that nobody would ask if we were talking about a new hamburger at McDonald's."  
"So, is it spelled M-A-X?"

"No, it's M-A-C-S."

"Eh, I'd rather spell it M-A-X?"

"Um, okay. Knock yourself out."

"So, how's Nazz coping with her brother's disappearance?"

"You know, I'm not sure."

"Maybe I should go over to her house and see. She probably needs some comfort."

"I'll go with you then," Edd knew that Eddy probably had an ulterior motive, so he volunteered to go with him.

* * *

Nazz, Kevin and Rolf were in her living room. It had been hours since they found out that Eric had gone missing without even leaving a note. Nazz told them everything he could, but there was a sneaking suspicion that the guy was an accomplice.

Then again, what was that huge crater doing in the middle of the cul-de-sac this morning? Obviously there was a fight of sorts between high-level Digimon although the houses weren't damaged other than slashes through doorways.

"So, if you need anything, we'll be there to help, okay?" Kevin assured, walking out the door.

"Rolf's family is more than willing to give you food or clothing," Rolf offered.

"No, thanks, I'm fine." Of course, it didn't help that Rolf's old-world food choices made her nauseous and that his fashion tastes were too retro for her. "Besides, my mom and I were pretty self-sufficient before Eric came back. I have plans to go shopping with Rachelle and her friend Ingrid later on anyway."

"Oh, yes, the mysterious girl from the gym yesterday, ja?" Rolf surmised.

"Yeah, dude, that would be her."

"Well, Rolf hopes you have a good time."

"Yeah, see you later, Nazz," Kevin said, he and Rolf walking out her front door. At last, Nazz could have some peace, some time to think about what's been happening lately.

"So, what do you think we'll do next? As a group I mean?" Palmon asked.

"I'm not sure. I know Kevin wants to get a group together to find the gate in the junkyard, but we'll eventually have to deal with Eddy's brother again and last night was a disaster even though his Digimon was only at the Perfect Level. Dealing with his Mega form would be even worse."

"I wonder how that happened."

"I don't know, dude. Maybe since Derek's been a Tamer longer, his Digimon has the experience to take on almost anything. There's also how it may have loaded the data from some pretty powerful Digimon. What Eric told me about their experiences in the Digital World was that he would always be the one to load the Digimon they fought."

"He led them, right?"

Nazz nodded. "There were many times where they clashed though. In the end, they became good friends but then they had a falling out after they came back to the real world."

Nazz remembered that time. She had started to idolize Derek since he and Eric were constantly hanging out but then, all the sudden, he was gone. She would ask her brother about it but wouldn't get anything out of him.

_That was some time._ When she finished with that though, she heard a knock at the door and ran over to open it. "Hey, how's it going, Eddy?" she asked, looking at the once short guy who was now slightly taller than she was.

"Not too bad. I just wanted to see how you were doing," he replied.

"Well, dude, I'm holding in there. It's hard realizing my brother's gone again but I'll adjust, Though he didn't even leave a message or anything."

"Man, that sucks. Oh well, it was the same way when my bro went away," Eddy commented. "At least your bro's not like mine."

"I know, huh. We don't know what happened, though it might be tied to the crater in the middle of the cul-de-sac."

They looked out the door at the eyesore that was a roadblock to everyone that wanted to get out of the area, though that doesn't stop some people like Eddy's dad from driving over it. Of course, Eddy's dad runs a profitable used-car dealership and can afford the gas mileage that comes with a large truck like the one he's got.

* * *

Robert looked at the spot where the portal was. It wasn't there anymore. Not even the pile that covered it remained. "Oh, man, this really sucks."

"Yeah, I know. We can't get to the Digital World, huh? Oh well," Terriermon said.

"Terriermon…"  
"What? Isn't that what you wanted, anyway?"

"No, I want to get our group to the Digital World to rescue Zack, Jimmy and all the others. I'm tired of running from all this. It's time to take action."

All the sudden, Terriermon saw a glow coming from Robert's shirt. "Uh, Robert, your crest."

Robert took it out. No doubt about it, the crest of Destiny was glowing. Robert smiled at that. "Ready to find this thing? I'm sure it's around here."

"Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about."

"I thought you didn't care whether we found it or not," Robert commented as they walked away from the area.

"I don't, but as long as I'm with my Tamer, I'm alright." On the way out, Terriermon glanced behind him to take note of a certain piece of wood on the ground wearing a black mask and a poorly drawn mouth. _Shouldn't that thing have been eaten by termites by now or something? Weird…

* * *

_

Later, Eddy and Robert were at Eddy's dining table, finishing up dinner with Eddy's family. Eddy's cousins were fast eaters so they were already gone from the table, probably watching TV. When Eddy finished his dish, he walked into the living room and they weren't there. "Huh?"

"Eddy! Over here!" His younger cousin James yelled out from the back door. He had brown hair cut short, though it was obviously curly. Strangely enough, both of Eddy's cousins were fatter than he was. James' clothing consisted of a green shirt, black gym shorts and some really thick glasses and he was Jimmy's age and had class with him, the two having worked together on school assignments before. Eddy had no idea what the two were planning, but that didn't matter to him.

"So, where is he?" The older cousin asked as Eddy went out the back door. His name was Scoot, and he had on a purple short sleeved shirt and some red shorts. Where James had curly hair, he had straight hair. At 17, he was the oldest cousin and therefore stood taller than Eddy. He also worked at a fast-food restaurant at the pick-up window.

"Who?"

"Commandramon," Scoot said. His voice showed him as not being so sure of himself.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Eddy denied.

"Oh, please, you've got a Digimon, I know it. Where's that armor wearing, Darth Vader-helmeted lizard at?"

"My helmet doesn't make me look like Dark Vader!" Commandramon yelled out, coming out of camouflage, accidentally pronouncing the Sith Lord's name wrong.

"I knew it."

"So, how?"

"Well, for nostalgic purposes I was watching the first season of Digimon and accidentally clicked on a link to some 'fan series' called Digimon Scammers. I didn't think it was going to be much, but after the intro, you showed up."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. So, can I see your digivice?"

"Sure, go ahead," Eddy said, accidentally handing the Green and Black digivice over.

"Uh, this isn't your digivice. It's supposed to be blue, not green."

"Oh, sorry about that. Heh." Eddy took away the green device and gave him the blue one.

"Sweet. So, are you going to go to the Digital World to find Garrett?" Scoot asked, looking at the thing.

Strangely enough, Eddy hadn't thought about going and getting his other cousin, Garrett. He knew that he was in the Digital World from Chaun, but other than that. "Yeah, you bet!"

"Good, 'cause I don't have a Digimon and it doesn't look like I'll be getting one."

Robert walked outside. "So, what's going on?"

"Not much, we're just talking about how we're getting a group together to try to go to the Digital World."

Robert was shocked. "You told them that?"

"He said there's some show on the internet that has our adventures."

"Yeah, I've gotta show you guys that," Scoot said.

"Who the heck could make something like that? And how?" Robert said, trying to wrap his head around the thing.

"Yeah, really."

"So, are you gonna show them or what?" James said, excited. "That show is so cool!"

Kids like James and Sarah made Eddy glad he didn't have a ten-year old sibling. He couldn't deal with that on a daily basis.

"Yeah. Hey, Rob, can we borrow your laptop?" Scoot asked.

"Uh, sure." _Crap, they probably know everything about me._

"So, can I see Terriermon?" James asked.

"Uh, sure," Robert wasn't so sure about this.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Call

A/N: James and Scoot aren't OCs, believe it or not, though they might as well be. James appeared briefly as a picture in the episode This Won't Hurt an Ed when Ed got shot into a filing cabinet, releasing a bunch of files. Scoot actually had a voice role in the Toon Dates segment with Ed and Daphne from Scooby Doo. Now, their being brothers and being related to Eddy was my idea. They're only minor characters by the way.

Ingrid's the same way, though she's a crossover character. Those three characters won't become Tamers (that is, unless you really want them to. If that's the case, I might as well have Yami come out of nowhere and comment on how every one in this story's a *bleep*ing Tamer.)


	10. The Call

Chapter 10: The Call

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or Ed, Edd n Eddy. Also, I don't own the other show that gets a slight crossover or the series of novels that get lampooned in Rachelle's sub plot.

Note: This chapter borrows heavily from Episode 13 of Digimon Adventure 02. Also, don't get offended if your favorite novel series gets bashed or your favorite actor gets spoofed.

Another note: Digimon aren't even around for a large portion of the chapter. Don't worry, though, they'll get their break.

* * *

The skies were bleak in the area on the edge of the see. It was borderline dark and the lighthouse on the edge of the cape didn't help much. In fact, it wasn't emitting light at all, but rather darkness was coming out of it as it twirled around.

Whatever this place was, it wasn't Earth or even the normal Digital World. A dark creature of indescribable horror rose from the depths of the sea, roaring and watching over its dominion.

The lighthouse continued emitting darkness.

* * *

For Rachelle, school was something else. For one thing, she had to deal with classmates that weren't exactly smart. Then there were the various hoodlums that roamed campus, looking to scam, smuggle, extort, or do numerous other unscrupulous activities. Her thoughts on the matter were either that Eddy would be at home here from what she had heard or that maybe getting a zone variance from Lemon Brook Jr. High to X Middle School was a mistake.

Then again, she was close friends with a member of the safety patrol, one of the school's weirdest features. It was unusual in that the safety patrol seemed more involved in school affairs and that it was actually effective, being more than simply a group of hall monitors.

Of course, the black guy who Ingrid's friends with helps.

"So, what are you up to?" Ingrid asked as Rachelle closed her locker. She had shoulder length black hair with bangs in the front, some black eyeliner, black lipstick, and was wearing a black dress of sorts, if you could call it that. The only thing not black was her orange safety patrol sash.

"Oh, I don't know. A couple of boys asked me to the dance, but… I don't know. They weren't really my type."

"Hmm… I don't really do dances so I don't really have an opinion. The only one who actually asked me to go with him was this creepy Goth boy with piercings all over that made my skin crawl."

Neither of them noticed the blonde cheerleader that was standing behind Rachelle. "Yeah? That reminds me of this weird Goth guy that some of my friends ran into the other night. The guy was quite the piece of work."  
"Excuse me," Rachelle turned around. "You're Rachelle, right?"

"Um, yeah." Rachelle didn't really like what this felt like.

"Well, it turns out that the hottest guy in school, Robert Patterson, will only go to the dance tonight with you!"

"Robert Patterson? Is he tall with brown hair?" Rachelle asked, though she was sure that the Robert who she went to the Digital World with didn't go to X.

"No, you silly. He has spiky blond hair, a really gorgeous face, and, ohmygosh, he looks like a movie star!"

Rachelle didn't like the sound of this. Chances are the guy that the cheerleader was talking about wasn't going to be her type. "Where is he and why doesn't he come and ask me himself?"

"Well, he's busy practicing for the swim team. You can see what he looks like yourself by going there!"

Rachelle had a hard time resisting rolling her eyes and Ingrid couldn't resist but the cheerleader wasn't looking at her so she didn't notice. "Tell him that if he really wants to go to the dance with me, he can come talk to me himself."

"What? Are you kidding?" The cheerleader grabbed onto Rachelle's wrist and practically dragged her.

Ingrid looked on in surprise. Her superior in the safety patrol, a stocky, light-skinned Mexican-American with short black hair and wearing a light blue dress shirt a black tie and black dress slacks, came up from behind her. "Wow, that cheerleader really wants to pair your friend up with someone, huh?"

"Yeah… really. If you don't mind, I think I'm going to follow her."

"Okay, I'm coming with you. We do have a case, involving someone named Robert Patterson." The two started following Rachelle and the Cheerleader.

"What a coincidence. He's the one that wants to go to the dance with Rachelle." Upon hearing that, the Mexican Safety Patrol officer blushed slightly.

* * *

Kevin was bored at school as usual. The efforts the past few days to find the portal to the Digital World came to naught, even with the help of Robert and Chaun. Kevin looked ahead at Nazz, who was sitting a couple of rows down and to the right.

_What if I'm not really cut out for leadership of the team?_

Nazz was the one that tried encouraging him the most. This was despite having lost her brother because Kevin fell for the Alias III's obvious ruse. Then again, what were they supposed to do? They were in the real world and obviously up to no good. Now the question of what they were intending to do with Patamon was weighing on everyone's minds.

Of course, Kevin realized he couldn't change the past. He could only move on.

He noticed something strange going on with Nazz. It was as if she was starting to phase out of existence.

"Nazz!" he blurted out, causing everyone to look directly at him.

* * *

Nazz was sitting in her seat when her mind started to wander. She couldn't keep her mind off of her brother and her worry for him. Not to mention the thought that if she was there, she wouldn't have been able to help him anyway.

What use did she have on the team anyway? She couldn't evolve to Mega like her brother could. Why was she a Tamer? Her Digimon was a mediocre fighter even in her adult form. Of course her team was the one team with no casualties in the last battle, but that didn't matter.

Maybe if her brother was still around, he could teach her something more, but he wasn't, so that was that.

She missed him.

She looked around and it was as if mist was enveloping the entire room. She looked at her feet and saw that they were submerged in water.

"Nazz!" Suddenly, the mist was gone and she was back in the classroom. She looked behind at Kevin with sad eyes.

"What is it, Kevin Douglas?" The teacher, a white male in his forties with a receding hairline asked.

Kevin didn't know how to answer. Nazz did, however. "Excuse me but I, like, don't feel very well."

"Do you think you need to see the nurse?" The teacher asked.

"That might be a good idea, thanks." Nazz got up and the teacher gave her a hall pass. She was one of the best behaved students in the class, after all.

Kevin just looked on. _Dude, I just saw her like turn into static or something._

After a few minutes, the bell rang for lunch.

* * *

Kevin went over to the nurse's office and asked if Nazz was there. She wasn't, so he, being worried about her, wandered around for a little bit, hoping to find her. He checked the usual spots: the library, the gym, the cafeteria, but she wasn't in any of them. Then, looking from the second story window, he saw her sitting at a bench.

He walked down right away. "Nazz! What's going on?" Nazz turned her head slowly toward her red-haired friend, eyes sad and depressed. "What happened?"

"I was at the ocean."

Kevin was royally confused. "The ocean? Dude, you couldn't have been."

Nazz looked into Kevin's eyes and asked, "Am I useless?"

Kevin was taken aback by the question. "Dude, don't say that."

"My brother was always able to help but now he's gone."

The red-head sat down next to Nazz. "I understand… you see…"

Nazz pulled something out of her left pant's pocket. It was a picture of her and her brother from when he still lived in Peach Creek, before Nazz had lost all that weight.

"Nazz, he's going to be all right. You're probably the strongest of all of us. You were able to lose all that weight all those years ago. You were the only one brave enough to go into the Kankers' trailer to get Eddy. Then there's our last battle where your team was the only one that didn't get at least one of its Digimon clobbered by the Alias."

Nazz looked out at the town. Kevin was right, however she still felt like she was just dragging everyone down. She got up and started walking.

"Now what?"

"I'm just going to go for a walk."

"Okay, dude. Just… be careful." Kevin cared for Nazz. Ever since the mistake the previous summer where he chose to save his bike instead of her, he's tried to be loyal to her as a friend. It's times like this that were hard, though. He knew about her brother before he came to visit but didn't see any pictures of the guy so he didn't really know what to expect.

Now he knew why Nazz was so attached to him despite his having been back for only a short time.

He started to walk, looking on at Nazz. However, while she was crossing the street, she started to go static again. Kevin realized this and ran after her, calling her name, but as she crossed the street, a truck drove between her and Kevin, and then she was gone, disappeared into thin air except for her backpack, which seemed to stay in the air for a second before dropping.

"Oh, no," he was dumbfounded. He went and picked up her things and grabbed his digivice to call the others for help.

* * *

Eddy would have been glad to be out of school if it weren't for this. Okay, so anything that involved being in your underwear in front of a guy that you've never met before in your entire life was pretty unsettling. What made it worse was that the guy was pressing various parts of your body looking for lumps. Of course, this was a physical, but it didn't have to be so invasive.

Oh, well, it could be worse.

"Now I'm going to have you pull your pants down."

_Oh, crap. _Of course Eddy tends to be naked a lot, but mainly around his house or in the locker room. Other than that, he wasn't used to it. Why his mom decided on today for him to get a physical, he would never know and as the physician checked him, he cursed her for that.

Next was an MRI. This wasn't too difficult: just lay down and go through a machine and get your insides get displayed on a monitor.

Then there were the X-rays.

Then he got blood drawn through a syringe, something that pretty much freaked him out when he saw it.

After that, he just got dressed again and was out. The doctor talked to his mother. "Well, it turns out that other than his weight, your son is perfectly healthy. He just needs to cut back on a few pounds."

"Yes, that's something that runs in the family. His father was the same way."

"Well, that seems to run though a lot of families, unfortunately. It'll be awhile before the results for the blood tests come in. If you're really concerned about his growth and if he hasn't stopped growing, feel free to come in again for another test."

"As if I'd do that again," Eddy muttered under his breath. It was funny that his mother mentioned his father at a time like this since his stepfather was actually kind of skinny. He felt like bringing it up later on while they were in the car. "So, what's his name?"

"Whose name?"

"Dad's."

Eddy's mom was surprised that Eddy had figured it out. She just expected him to be thinking about his stepfather even though that was obviously not who she had been talking about with the doctor earlier. "When did you find out?"

"Almost two years ago."

"Hmm…"

"I already know about Clay, or Clayton or whatever his name is. He went to the same school as Robert."

His mother looked straight at him as if he was crazy. "Mom! The light!"

His mom slammed the breaks and the car, an old green sedan, came to a screeching halt. "You're kidding me. That's impossible."

"Yeah? Why is that?" Eddy's digivice started beeping. "Hold on a sec. Business is calling." He opened his digivice and a video display of Kevin came up. "Hey, what's up, Shovelchin!"

Kevin was not amused by the use of that nickname. _"Dude, something serious is going on. Nazz just disappeared into static. I think she went to the Digital World!"_

Eddy was dumbfounded. "Wait, so she's disappeared into the Digital World? Any luck on that portal?"

_"Uh, dude, we still can't find it."_

"Okay… so what do we do?"

_"Beats me. What the heck are you doing outside of school anyway?"_

"I had to go get a physical and now I'm going clothes shopping. I also need some new shoes since the ones I was wearing are now like five sizes too small."

"_Dude, come to school as soon as you're done, alright?"_

"Got it." Eddy then closed up the digivice.

"So, did another monster come to the real world or something?"

"No, Nazz disappeared into thin air. At least that's what Kevin said. To me this sounds like something out of one of Ed's comics."

* * *

"Cool, this is like out of that comic Cthulhu's Revenge!" Ed exclaimed at the lunch table.

Edd wasn't amused. "Ed, let's be serious. To me this sounds just like Digimon Adventure 02, Episode 13 where Hikari goes to this other parallel world called the Dark Ocean."

"None of you guys are taking me seriously, are you?" Kevin asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Of course we are. This is a very serious matter and at the most horrific timing if I'd say so myself, especially as we're about to try to find the gateway to the Digital World."

"So, do any of you guys have any idea about how to deal with this problem?"

"Well, the method used in the show to get to the Dark Ocean was rather unorthodox, if I'd say so myself. Basically, she has to call for you from there."

"Oh, great, what if she, like, get's killed or something before that happens?"

"Then I don't know what we would be able to do."

* * *

"So, if this guy's so hot, then why are you trying to help him ask me out?" Rachelle asked the cheerleader as they walked to where he was having swim practice.

"Because he won't just ask anyone out. I figured that if this is how I can win his heart over, then I'll do it!"

Rachelle rolled her eyes. The cheerleader wasn't looking at her so it didn't matter too much. _Wow, you're shallow. Chances are that this guy's a total loser. Why am I doing this?_

"Omygosh, like, there he is!" The cheerleader squealed as they entered the pool area. Patterson, (or was it Peterson? Rachelle couldn't remember) was on the diving board, chiseled abs, thin frame, pointy jaw that looked like it was on the cover of one of those comics that the girls in the anime club would always read, spiky blond hair, and beautiful blue eyes. But what stood out the most was how pale the guy was. It was as if he was a vampire or something.

"You know, when I first met him, I thought he was a vampire or something. He's so hot! But I asked the resident Indian kid but no, he wasn't a vampire." The only Indian kid that Rachelle could think of was from India. Of course, all the Native Americans in the area had been pushed out three hundred years earlier. Rachelle couldn't suppress _yet another_ eye-roll.

Patterson jumped into the pool in a usual perfect dive, wowing onlookers. For all Rachelle knew, he probably shaved all the hair off his body. Not to mention, the guy was wearing a red Speedo, yet another turn-off. Rachelle shuddered. For one thing, she already had to deal with an overly idealistic cheerleader trying to hook her up with a scrawny pale white guy that looked like something out of those Vampirita novels that Rachelle hated so much, but seeing him in a Speedo, that was more than she could bear. "Do me a favor and tell him I'm not interested," Rachelle said, walking away.

"What? How can you possibly not be interested? He's so gorgeous!"

"And he's emitting too many red flags for me to take him seriously. I'm off." _And red speedos._

Rachelle got into the hallway where Ingrid and Vallejo were finally catching up with her. "So, I take it that it was a 'no.'" Ingrid guessed.

"Oh, please, the guy's got all these girls as pawns and it's so obvious," Rachelle said, indignant.

"Good for you for sticking up to him like that."

"So, um…" Vallejo stuttered, "I don't have anyone to go to the dance. Would you like to?"

"I'm not really looking to start dating, but thank you."

"If you don't mind, I need to go on official Safety Patrol business. I would ask Ingrid to go, but she had already declined. Other than her, I only have one other female officer and she's already got a date."

"Okay, if you say so."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," they heard in a wannabe sexy voice behind Rachelle, causing her to sweat. _Oh, great, it's him._

She turned around and he was there, in his Speedo. All three resisted the urge to barf. "I said no."

"But a pretty lady like yourself shouldn't have to stay home while everyone else is having fun."

"I already got a date."

"Who?"

"This guy." She said, walking past Vallejo and patting him on the back.

"I hope you have a good night, you two." Patterson said, walking back into the pool area, smiling sinisterly.

* * *

Later that night, Rachelle put on a dress. It was a red dress with a bow on the back of it and it covered her shoulders and showed no cleavage. She didn't like wearing dresses that much, anyway, but had to occasionally because of her family's religion, not that she didn't believe in it, it's just that she didn't care for the feel of formal attire. She did understand why everyone wore it though, out of respect for God.

Then there was her hair, which was not in her usual ponytail. Her parents had qualms about her going with a guy from school that they didn't know, but Rachelle had learned about him from Ingrid anyway, so she trusted him, certainly a lot more than she trusted Eddy.

Vallejo reminded Ingrid of someone that she missed. Two people, actually. Rachelle walked out of the house and Renamon appeared. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"By the way, I sense a Digimon."

"I'm sure the others can take care of it. Besides, you don't want me to be late for my first date, do you?"

Renamon smiled. "No, I suppose that wouldn't look good to your suitor." Renamon evolved to Kyuubimon and Rachelle rode her. During the transit to X Middle School, they communicated telepathically due to her Digimon's unique nature. Rachelle always had a hard time explaining the interface, but she knew there wasn't anything uncanny about it. The digivices reacted to the Tamer's emotions for instance so it had to have something to do with that.

"So, this is the spot," Kyuubimon said, dropping Rachelle off at X Middle School in the usual non-conspicuous location. Lemon Brook was quite far from X, the school being on the edge of the city, so it was either have her mom drive her to school or take Kyuubimon. Kyuubimon didn't have to worry about gas mileage so she was the best bet. Besides, it was Rachelle who wanted to go to X instead of Lemon Brook anyway.

"Ah, you're here," Vallejo said in his usual accent. "The lowdown is this. I needed to have two teams from the safety patrol at the dance undercover and since my top detective Fillmore is down, suffering from food poisoning, I had to be here. Ingrid would rather work on the side anyway."

Rachelle smiled. "Okay, so what's happening exactly?"

"You know the guy who tried to ask you out earlier? We think he may be up to something here at the dance."

"I thought he was kind of shady."

"Well, yeah, it turns out he might be part of a plot to change everyone's grades in the system to either A's or F's for the people he doesn't like, including us."

"A computer hacker?"

"Yes, exactly. We don't know how he's planning on doing it but our sources confirm it's going to be here."

"So, before we go any further, what's your first name?" Rachelle asked.

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Well, we're on a date, so shouldn't we be on first name basis?"

Vallejo knew she was right. "Horatio."

"How far removed are you from your Mexican heritage?"

"My grandfather came here from there. The state of Chihuahua, actually. Why?"

Rachelle smiled as they walked into the gym. "The pronunciation of your name's not Spanish."

"Yeah…"

"So, are there any Chihuahuas in Chihuahua?" she asked jokingly.

"My grandfather hadn't even seen one until he moved here."

Rachelle laughed. It was going to be a fun night.

* * *

"So, there's this bioemergence from last night that we still haven't been able to track. Any idea where it's at?" Kevin asked. Him, the Eds, Rolf and the respective Digimon were in his bedroom. Kevin was still reeling from Nazz's disappearance, but any good leader would be able to deal with that.

Was he a good leader?

The question continued to weigh heavily on his mind.

"Well, our digivices have narrowed the wild Digimon's location to this area." Edd pointed to a spot on the map. "Then a few minutes ago, I surveyed the area and found a digivice signal at X Middle School."

"What the..? That place?" Eddy exclaimed. He had new shoes on now, though they were practically indistinguishable from the old ones.

"What's X Middle School supposed to be?" Commandramon asked.

"It's this school that we played at in Football. Man, they were tough. If it weren't for Chaun and his saving touchdown and some of Kevin's good tactics, then we would have had a worse game than the one with Lemon Brook."

Edd felt that they needed to get back to the subject. "Let's put our school rivalries aside for a second. We need to contact this tamer and ascertain whether or not they're either a Rogue or working for the Empire."

"Is the digivice Black and Blue?" Eddy asked.

"Well, the color scheme is more Dark Blue with Black trim. Why would you ask?"

"Uh, nothing." _I doubt it's him…_

"What kind of Digimon does he have?" Kevin asked.

"Well, I've been able to check the stats on the guy's digivice. He seems to have a Digimon named Keramon."

* * *

The dance seemed to be going well. Vallejo wasn't too bad of a salsa dancer, something that he didn't usually let other people know and Rachelle seemed to be having a good time.

All the sudden, about halfway through a song, the lights flickered. Vallejo thought he saw Rachelle get covered in static for a second too, which he thought was odd.

"I think he might be here," Vallejo suggested. "Did you do what I suggested with your clothes?"

"Yeah. It's awfully hot but I'm ready for whatever." Rachelle and Vallejo ran outside the gym into the halls and Rachelle tossed off her dress while Vallejo threw off his suit jacket to where Rachelle's dress was. "Oh yeah, can't forget." Rachelle reached inside her dress and pulled out some brown sneakers, took off her high heels and put the sneakers on. "High heels are a pain. Be glad you're not a woman," Rachelle said jokingly.

"I'll remember that if I ever get married and my wife's in a bad mood when the reception's over," Vallejo commented as they started walking toward the computer lab where the suspect may have been.

"I know I'm going to get married in fashion athletic shoes or something." Rachelle's digivice started vibrating and she pulled it out. "Keramon?" she whispered.

"What about Pokémon?" Vallejo asked, pulling out his walkie-talkie.

"Nothing."

After hearing Rachelle's answer, Vallejo started talking through his giant black walkie-talkie. "Vallejo to Third, do you read me?"

_"Affirmative,"_ Ingrid responded from the other end, standing over the inert bodies of numerous safety patrol officers. _"It seems that our suspect is already hacking into the system. I checked the other units and their all down. I'm heading in to meet you."_

"What did she mean by down?" Rachelle asked.

"What did you mean by down?" Vallejo repeated.

_"Most of them seem to be unconscious due to a mild electric shock."_

Rachelle's eyes grew wide from that and Vallejo noticed. "Do you have anything to add, Bueller?"

"I know you're not gonna believe me but I think the attack may have been caused by a Digimon."

"Yeah right." All the sudden, Renamon appeared in front of him, scaring the living daylights out of him. "When did the furry convention come into town?"  
"This is Renamon, my partner Digimon," Rachelle said, "She is _not_ a furry."

"You called?" Renamon asked.

"Yes, it seems that there's a student using a Digimon to hack into the school computers."

"I can sense it."

"I better call the others for backup just in case."

Vallejo was royally confused. "You mean to say that there are others with um… whatever these things are?"

"Digimon? Yeah. We call ourselves Tamers since there's nothing saying we're Digi-destined or Chosen Children or DATS members or whatever those others are called."

"Yeah?"

They reached the door to the computer lab and Ingrid was waiting. "So, ready to see what we're dealing with?" she asked then looked at Renamon. "Oh, hi Renamon."

"Good to see you too, Ingrid."

Vallejo was surprised for the fifteenth time that hour. "You knew about this?"

"Well, yeah. Of course, Renamon and her Tamer aren't threats to the school so I figured it didn't matter."

"She figured it out the first time she came to my house," Rachelle told him.

"Wow, I feel so out of the loop." The stocky Jr. Commissioner grabbed onto the doorknob and opened the door.

A man in a black mask was at one of the computers. He looked straight at the group and ran out the window. The others ran over to the window and clearly saw, looking out, that he had merely jumped over to a conveniently placed ladder and was climbing it to the roof. "Why does this always happen?" Ingrid asked.

Rachelle jumped on top of the window sill and proceeded to grab onto the ladder, followed closely by Ingrid and then Vallejo who before climbing out looked behind him and didn't see Renamon, something that surprised him. Of course, he wondered if the whole Digimon thing was only his mind playing tricks on him. His idea was proven wrong when he climbed up onto the roof to see Renamon face to face with another Digimon that looked like a dark blue colored alien with multiple tentacles.

"Fancy seeing you here, Rachelle." She recognized the voice and wasn't surprised when the guy took off his mask to reveal himself as Patterson… or was it Pattinson? She couldn't remember. He just shared his first name with a different friend of hers.

"Oh, please cut to the chase. What are you doing?" she asked.

"Simple. I'm hacking into the computer system so that I can change the grades of the entire school with the help of Keramon here. If you dare to interfere, you will be sorry."

"Yeah, right. Renamon!" The vulpine knew what to do. She proceeded to run toward the small alien Digimon with her claws out, engulfing them in blue flames.

"_Touhakken_!" she yelled, aiming toward Keramon, who took a direct hit. Keramon was thrown back and looked at his tamer.

"You know, if you came with me to the dance, we wouldn't be fighting."

"Why would I come with you to the dance?"

"Because I'm hot. Why else?"

Rachelle pulled a card out of her deck. "Well, I don't find you attractive."

"Hmm… You must be into black men, huh? Or how about that plain looking blond boy, the one with the Tsukaimon."

Rachelle's eyes narrowed. "You're talking about Chaun and Daniel. How could you know about them?"

"Well, your adventures in the Digital World are online for everyone to see, aren't they?"

Rachelle didn't know what he was talking about. "What?"

"Digimon Empire. A series staring you, some fatty, some dumb brat girl, a token black guy, some blond guy turned traitor, some random Uruguayan guy and a bunch of monsters."

He rambled on, explaining everything that she dealt with while in the Digital World. "Sounds like quite the adventure. Since I saw you around school, I had to look you up and what do you know? You were the same girl from that online show that I ran across one night after watching some naughty imagery. Yes, the one hot person in the entire cast, how about it. I was obsessed. You know, with these Digimon, we could rule the school, just you, me, and our good looks."

Rachelle couldn't believe her ears. "I think you're ugly. First, you're extremely pale. Second, you look anorexic with how skinny you are."

"Then again, you do seem a bit used to complete bags of fat, your date for example." Rachelle looked back at Vallejo, who had an angry look on his face. Of course, this was someone who normally had a bit of a scowl, but now his face was starting to flush red.

He burst out and ran over to the prettyboy villain. "Don't call me fat!" He was about to punch him, but the guy kicked him in the legs, causing him to drop down to the ground. Then Patterson put his foot on top of the Jr. Commissioner, looking like some sort of hunter standing over his conquest.

"Oh, yes you are," he chastised, leading over Vallejo. He grabbed Vallejo by the collar and pulled him aside. "I never knew you'd have such warped perceptions of taste."

"Oh, no," Ingrid gasped as their enemy held out his digivice, evolving Keramon to its Adult form, a blue chrysalis with a white spike on the bottom, black eyes and a red spike in between them. It had numerous whips coming out of it as well, each tipped with a blade.

"Chrysalimon, Adult Level, Unidentified?" Rachelle read from her digivice. "Dude, didn't 'Our War Game' come out like ten years ago?" Like that mattered. She decided that she might as well just evolve her Digimon so she did, holding out her yellow and blue digivice.

"Renamon Evolve! Kyuubimon!" The large yellow quadruped fox confronted the chrysalis and all Ingrid or Vallejo could do was watch.

* * *

Elsewhere, Kevin, Eddy and Ed were en route. It turns out that Edd had been called over to Chaun's house to help him with some very important project. Kevin knew about the project, but had Chaun keep it under wraps for the time being. Then there was Robert, who was taking advantage of the Wi-Fi at a bookstore to complete his final exams long distance.

Oh, well, it was only an Adult Level threat at this point, so they shouldn't be needed.

After this, all he would have to worry about was Nazz. Breaking the news to Palmon was painful and he would have to find a way to the other world somehow. If it was the Digital World, then he would need to find the gate, but they couldn't.

Kevin felt like the world was starting to collapse. He didn't know if he could be a leader anymore after Nazz's disappearance.

"Cheer up, man, we'll find her," Eddy encouraged, noting the look on the redhead's face as their hair blew in the wind from flying with Aquilamon.

"Thank you, dude."

* * *

Nazz didn't know where she was. She explored the dark beach and walked around for hours trying to find a way out, but there didn't seem to be one. She hated this feeling. It was as if the world was emanating despair.

All she could do was sit there now. She was all alone in this strange world and couldn't do anything about it.

"See Kevin… This is why I shouldn't be on your team…"

* * *

Next Chapter: Rogues and Heroes

A/N: Sorry for not getting to the Digital World yet. There's a couple of things I want to accomplish with this story that I haven't gotten to, one involving Eddy getting to be the leader and another involving the evolution to Perfect. Yes, it happens really soon. If you feel like looking up the perfect form in Commandramon's evolution line, feel free.

Oh, and no offense to those pale scrawny white guys that look like vampires. I'm white and scrawny myself (though I don't look like a vampire).


	11. Rogues and Heroes

Chapter 11: Rogues and Heroes

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't bug.

A/N: In this chapter, you get to meet the resident Yamaki clone. Yep…

* * *

Chrysalimon launched several knife like appendages at Kyubimon, who either dodged or burned any that came too close. She realized she was going to need backup soon. Her hope came true when she saw Aquilamon come up behind Chrysalimon, launching its blast laser attack, consisting of numerous red rings of energy coming from its mouth, damaging the bladed cocoon. Aquilamon dropped down low enough for Eddy, Kevin and their respective partners to drop down.

_Having Guilmon evolve would probably destroy the school_, Kevin thought, noticing the rooftop battleground they were at. "Eddy, you can evolve Commandramon to Sealsdramon but I can't do that with Guilmon. Can you take care of this battle?"

Eddy nodded. "Heck yeah, man." Eddy thought it was kind of strange that Kevin would make him do this. It was almost as if he was prepping him for something. Then there's how he's been on edge for the past few weeks.

Of course, right now they had a rogue Tamer who's Digimon they needed to defeat. "Ready to go, Commandramon?" Eddy asked, holding up his digivice.

"Yeah!" The digivice began to glow and Commandramon evolved within a datasphere. "Commandramon Evolve! Sealsdramon!"

Sealsdramon proceeded to run toward the floating Chrysalis, slicing any knife-tipped cables that came his way. The Digimon was like a ninja, full of grace and power at the same time. Then it ran up to the blue Digimon and yelled out "Death Behind!" slicing the thing across the back. Stray data sprayed out from the back of the thing.

"Kyubimon!" Rachelle yelled out, Ingrid and Vallejo behind her. Vallejo had gotten up and out of the way once the fight got really bad.

The giant fox knew what to do, running toward its opponent and yelling out "_Koenryuu_!" jumping forward, spinning really fast and causing her body to turn into a swirling ball of blue fire with a dragon head. She struck Chrysalimon just as Aquilamon launched another Blast Laser, destabilizing the enemy Digimon and causing it to revert back to an egg.

Patterson, or was it Atkinson? stood there in shock. "This wasn't supposed to happen! I wasn't supposed to lose, especially not to some fat, ugly, uneducated, Latino with a wannabe ninja assassin! I'm too hot for this!"

"Gee, it's not that hot out," Eddy told him, confused, "I think you've got me confused with somebody else. As far as I know, my ancestors were in this country 300 years ago."

"Besides," Vallejo started, "What do you mean by uneducated Latin side? Are you insinuating that all Latinos are uneducated?"

"Well considering." Patterson got socked in the face. He finally looked at the culprit: it was Rachelle.

"Just so you know, I have a friend whose dad's from Uruguay and he's one of the smartest people I know," she told him. "You on the other hand are the most bigoted person I've ever met. Heck! I barely even know you."

"But, I'm hot!"

"So, beauty isn't everything. Besides, you're pretty face was tarnished by my punch, so you can't expect to trick any more simple-minded girls into your plans. Now if you _ever_ come up to me again, then you can be rest assured that…" she trailed off as her body dissolved into static.

"Rachelle!" Eddy yelled, running toward her, but it was too late. She was already gone.

"No way, dude, she's in the Dark Ocean," Kevin realized. _If that's what it is_…

Eddy stood there, looking at the spot. Then he started to turn around, but as soon as he turned his head, he got socked in the face by Patterson. He fell to the ground and looked at the far skinnier guy.

"Oh, if the fat kid isn't feeling so well. I must say, Rachelle really knows how to pick ugly friends. Oh well, I've gotta move along now! Cha cha." The enemy proceeded to run towards the corner of the roof that didn't have anyone. Then, while he was a mere ten feet away from the edge, he tripped over some piano wire. "What in the name of-!"

As he got up, he felt some cuffs latch onto his wrists. He looked behind himself to see who it was: a bald black guy with thick round glasses. "You… You're supposed to be reeling from food poisoning!"

"Well, since I recovered this afternoon, I figured I might as well come over and take care of business. From the looks of it, you had quite the scuffle, vampire boy."

"Oh, why does everyone have to say that? Just because I look like a movie vampire doesn't mean I am one, for crying out loud!"

"Figures Fillmore would come and save the day," Ingrid said, after that looking at the spot where Rachelle had been. "Mostly…"

"I wonder how we can get her back," Vallejo mused.

Kevin looked on in shock. Here he was, he came to help but couldn't and he was powerless to stop yet another friend from getting sucked into a parallel world. "Dude," he muttered under his breath. They were going to have to figure out how to deal with this one way or another.

* * *

Rachelle found herself on the edge of a beach. The area didn't look at all familiar, though the lighthouse did remind her of the time she went to Mondo-A-Go-Go, with it being against the sea and everything, only instead of it being bright and colorful, it was dark and dreary. It reminded her of when she lived in Kent, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, as a little girl: lots of clouds and lots of rain… only it was more depressing.

She walked down the length of the beach. Then she saw someone. It was a figure sitting down in the sand, looking out at the sea. Rachelle walked closer and realized who it was. "Nazz?" She had known that Nazz had disappeared into thin air earlier that day, but she didn't expect it to happen to her.

Nazz looked at the brunette girl. "Rachelle? What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. We were fighting an enemy Digimon on the rooftop of a nearby school and I was chewing out an enemy Tamer when I ended up here." Rachelle sat down next to Nazz. "Where is here, anyway?"

Nazz got up and walked off. "Where are you going?" Rachelle asked getting up and following the blonde.

"I need to be alone."

As far as Rachelle knew, Nazz was alone all afternoon and evening. "Okay." Rachelle stopped for a second, and then kept on following. Eventually they walked by what looked like some sort of shanty beach side neighborhood and then they walked along the bottom of a cliff, getting their feet wet in the process. After that, they came across an underground tunnel.

"Oh, my gosh," Nazz said at the sight of a group of Digimon. They were all one species, a blue finned sea monkey, or at least what the sea monkeys were portrayed as looking like on the front of one of the boxes: half fish, half man.

Rachelle looked at her digivice. "Hangyomon. Perfect Level, Data Type." She then looked up at the Digimon, "What are you doing here? Are we in the Digital World?"

One of them walked forward. "We were at one point living here in peace, worshiping our god. Then the enemy of our god came and subjected us to his rulership and we can't anymore."

Rachelle was slightly bothered by the concept of this god that the Digimon worshipped. The only thing she had heard of along the lines of a god in the Digital World was Yggdrasil, and she hadn't heard anything about him being worshipped. Obviously, though, these Digimon were under attack by something. "So, like, what happened?"

"Many years ago, a Tamer came and fought our god, and our god defeated him, but because the Tamer had made a pathway here, other enemies came, subjecting us to these." The Digimon pointed out a dark spiral with digi-code on it. "Because of this, we can't evolve and we can't defend ourselves. Now another enemy is in the area, subjecting us to slavery."

Nazz could feel nothing but pity for the Digimon. "Don't worry, little dudes, we'll help you."

Rachelle looked at Nazz. "Okay, I hate to burst your bubble here, but there's just the two of us and we don't have our partners."

Nazz knew that Rachelle was right, however "Dude, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try."

_Well, at least she's not moping around all depressed anymore,_ Rachelle thought, trying hard not to crack a smile. The other day, just after Nazz's brother disappeared, they went shopping together. Rachelle knew Nazz was unusually quiet, and with her brother gone again it was understandable.

Suddenly, they heard a buzzing insect noise outside. "The enemy of our god has found us! Run!" the Hangyomon exclaimed. Suddenly they saw the source: a large grey beetle Digimon.

"Okuwamon, Insect Digimon, Perfect Level. So, Nazz, how do you think we should do this?" Rachelle asked.

"I don't know." She was powerless, but there was a hope inside of her that made her want to reach out to her friends for help. The Purity of that desire to help made her digivice start to glow light green. She picked it up and looked at it. Then she held it out in the direction of the ocean.

* * *

After the battle, the Tamers were in the X Middle School Safety Patrol's office along with the Digimon: Renamon, Guilmon, Sealsdramon, and Hawkmon. Outside the office, reporters were hanging out. Inside, they were finishing up the process of getting Patterson arrested and taken into custody. A police officer had him cuffed and led out of the room. It turned out he was wearing a mask and that his face was covered in terrible acne. Once he was gone, Vallejo decided to have a talk with the Tamers.

"So let me get this straight: you guys are a group of kids that just happened to get these things called Digimon and you call yourselves Tamers."

"Yeah, dude, that's right."

"So, why on earth does it have to be you guys? Why did you guys have to become Tamers?" he asked before sipping some steaming hot cocoa.

"Well… um… we don't know for sure," Kevin replied.

"Yeah, other than how my bro was a Tamer before me, we have no clue why or who chose us," Eddy said.

"Maybe it's this group of invisible beings from the Digital World, or the DigiGnomes or Ophanimon chose us," Ed said, giving away all of his suggestions based on ideas from the TV show.

"Dude, we don't even know what the hierarchy of the Digital World is. How are you even sure any of that stuff even exists?" Kevin asked Ed, who just shrugged.

"Now another thing: what the heck happened with Rachelle?" Vallejo asked, "She just… disappeared."

The Tamers had their ideas, ranging from the Dark Ocean to the Digital World with motives such as the Emperor trying out a new weapon to them being kidnapped by someone else in power over in the Digital World. From what Robert, Chaun and Rachelle told them, there are more governments in power in the Digital World than just the Empire, each with their own agenda. Then again, that was a year ago.

"We don't know at the moment, but we will do everything we can to help out." As Kevin said that, the door opened to the office. Vallejo eyed the person walking in along with two others who remained at the door. The person was an adult: tall and skinny with disheveled blond hair. He had sunglasses on despite it being at night.

"Unfortunately, Kevin Walter Douglas, you have no authority to be doing such a thing." Kevin looked back at the man.

"Huh? Who the heck are you?"

"My name is Trevor Cox and I am with the NSA program Somnus. We've been monitoring Digital Emergences for a while now." Sealsdramon looked at the man and growled. "You will all have to stay here. Understand this: I'm doing this for your protection."

"Yeah right," Eddy said, disbelieving.

"Unfortunately, Edward Skipper McGee, this situation has gotten out of control. Numerous children, members of your group of Tamers, have disappeared and we have taken notice of that. This is not a game. You of all people should realize that."

"Yeah?"

"Your own twin brother, for instance…" Kevin, Ed and all the Digimon looked at Eddy in surprise. "Then there's the case of Nadia Van Bartonshmeer and Rachelle Bueler. Not to mention James Wycliffe and Sarah, Edwin Horace Bates' sister. You know, by playing this game, you're adversely affecting everyone involved."

The Tamers stared at the man, unsure of how to act.

"Vallejo, your orders are clear. You are under no circumstances allowed to let these children out of this room. They're allowed one last visit with their Digimon." Cox walked toward the door and stopped by Renamon. "By the way, Renamon, we know you can teleport, so don't try anything." Renamon's eyes got wide and she looked at the man as he walked out the door, Ingrid coming in after him and shutting it.

"You can't let them do that!" Eddy told Vallejo.

"I have no choice."

"Oh, heck yeah you do! Why are you obeying that idiot, anyway? He's not your boss."

"Eddy!" Vallejo yelled before regaining his composure. "X Middle School is a government institution. If I go against the orders of the NSA, I'm effectively going against the orders of the school. End of story." The truth of the matter was that Vallejo felt really bad about doing that. Then again, there have been many times where he'd been forced to kick his best officers off the squad. He didn't like it, though said officers would always get things back to where they were supposed to be.

He wondered how things were going to be when he left, since he was in eighth grade. In some ways he wanted Fillmore or Anza to succeed him.

"Excuse me, Vallejo, but Anza and Tehama finished their reports," Ingrid said, putting the papers on the Jr. Commissioner's desk.

Vallejo just looked at them. "I'll go over them tomorrow."

"So, what's going on as far as the Tamers?" she asked.

Vallejo looked at her, then at Eddy. "You tell her, McGee."

"Some dirtbags at the NSA want to take our Digimon away," the once diminutive Ed said.

"Dude, why is the NSA even involved?" Kevin asked.

Ingrid was the one that answered: "The NSA specializes in cryptography, code-breaking, and gathering information from potential enemies of the United States. I remember reading a novel one time that was about a cryptographer who worked for them and used a supercomputer to crack codes. It's pretty interesting stuff. Maybe the supercomputer exists and they used it to find the Digital World."

"Cool," Ed said. "Maybe it's like Hypnos on Digimon Tamers."

"That would make sense," Ingrid responded. "I wonder how long those guys have actually known about Digimon. Hmm… It's one of those weird mysteries I guess. I doubt that those NSA guys are going to actually tell us."

Suddenly, a green light appeared on Eddy's chest. "What the…?" Eddy pulled out the source of that light: a crest.

"Dude, I thought that Kindness was your crest," Kevin said.

"It is! I just have this one with me because my bro stole one of the other ones." The green light caused a gate to open. "No way…"  
"Oh man, this must be how we'll find the girls!" Kevin exclaimed. "You coming Guilmon?" he asked.

"You bet, Kevin!" the Digimon said, following his Tamer through the rift.

"Come on, Sealsdramon. Time's a wastin'!" Eddy exclaimed, running through the gate himself.

"Eddy, couldn't you at least be more careful!" Sealsdramon said, running though behind his Tamer.

"Hey giant chicken! We've got a world to save!" Ed exclaimed, grabbing Hawkmon.

"Why can't I follow you like the other Digimon?" the bird asked as he was carried through the gate.

"Might as well go through it myself, huh, Ingrid?" Vallejo asked. "Because I know I'm toast if they find out about this."

Ingrid shrugged as Renamon ran through the portal. "Hey, it's not as if we've got anything better to do."

* * *

After walking out the door of the Safety Patrol's office, Cox decided to make a phone call with a Bluetooth device attached to his ear. "Trish, Millie, any updates?" the blond agent asked.

"No sir," Trish replied, sitting in a chair that was hooked up to a crane in the middle of a spherical computer area. She was a Latina with somewhat dark skin and was wearing a white outfit and a visor over her eyes. She had a keyboard at her chair. "We've been picking up unusual anomalies but nothing that has any affect of the Real World."

"By the way," Millie started to say. She was Caucasian with black hair and had a similar white outfit on, "Symanski wants to know if you need any help detaining the Digimon."

Professor Symanski was a bit eager, wanting to test out his new program. The professor got on Cox's nerves, especially since he wasn't even an American citizen and yet he was working for the NSA's project Somnus. The professor's three children got trapped in the Digital World so he probably warranted some sympathy however the man struck Cox as arrogant. "No, as a matter of fact, we seem to be doing well in that department. I left one of the students in charge of keeping an eye on them."

"Okay, if you say so." Suddenly, an alarm sounded in Somnus' monitoring area. "Getting a bizarre reading. It's from that other Digital World. Getting a location of the gate. Cox! It's in the school."

Cox rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses and proceeded to run back to the office only to see… nothing. He growled. "Great, too late. Now I'm wondering if accepting that idiot Symanski's proposition wasn't a bad idea."

"Sir, you're still talking through the phone."

Once again, he cursed his Bluetooth device.

* * *

The three tamers, four Digimon and two 'guests' found themselves on the beach between the ocean and a large tunnel. They noticed the large grey beetle stalking a couple of girls and a bunch of sea-monkeys with diving suits and knew to take action. "Rachelle's in danger! Renamon evolve!" the vixen yelled out, but to no avail.

"Guilmon?" Kevin asked.

"Guilmon evolve… um… Growlmon?" the dinosaur looked around. "Why can't I do it, Kevin?" the lizard asked.

"Ugh. Great. There must be something blocking evolution."

Eddy found it strange that his Digimon stayed at the Adult Level, but he wasn't complaining. "Come on, Sealsdramon, attack that thing with all you've got!"

"Got it, Eddy," The ninja-like cyborg Digimon said, pulling out a knife. "Death Behind!"

"The lighthouse, guys!" Ed yelled out.

"Huh? What about the lighthouse?" Eddy asked. He looked up at the building on the cliff to their left and thought it was weird. "You know, I can totally see Double D making a comment on how that's impossible according to the laws of physics."

"Yeah?" Ed asked. "So how are we going to destroy it?"

"Why do we have to destroy it?" Eddy asked.

"The lighthouse has a control spire in it and that's what's suppressing our evolution."

"Oh, I'm still not that far." Eddy knew what to do, though. "Hey, Ed, slash this."

"The Digimental of Love. I thought it was called a Digi-egg?"

"Oh, just slash it."

"How on earth did you think ahead like this," Hawkmon asked.

"I did some research on the various types of Digivolution online earlier today when we went to the bookstore and that struck me as something that could be useful."

Ed nodded, and then held the card over his head. "Digi-Modify! Armor Evolution!"

"Hawkmon Armor Evolve! Holsmon!" The armor Digimon was like a red quadruped eagle with white armor wings on its head.

"Come on Holsmon! Let's destroy the Control Spire!" Ed said, getting on the back of his Digimon.

"Um, Ed, I think they're called Dark Towers."

"I know what the show says!"

Holsmon grumbled as he flew over to the tower destroying it with its attack.

"Now, Guilmon!"

"Yeah! Guilmon Evolve! Growlmon!"

"Renamon Evolve! Kyuubimon!"

The two Adult Level Digimon aimed for the Perfect Level insect as it moved toward the Hangyomon, in pain because of Sealsdramon attached to its back. "You like that, huh?" Sealsdramon asked mockingly as it stabbed again.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" the Okuwamon asked in an accent that sounded vaguely Chinese. "Those things aren't even real Digimon!"

"Huh?" Eddy grunted. "That thing actually speaks?"

"Well of course, you idiot Imperial!"

"He's lying," the lead Hangyomon said. "We are Digimon!"

"Sure… uh-huh. So, here's the deal, let me at these guys and I'll leave you guys alone."

"How do we know you're not lying?" Nazz asked. "These guys aren't dangerous. They didn't hurt anyone!"

"You have no idea, missy." The Okuwamon marched forward, aiming toward the Hangyomon.

"Looks like we have no choice," Kevin said, "Growlmon, give him all you've got!"

"Exhaust Flame!" the dinosaur yelled, covering the back of the grey insect with his fireball.

"Come on, Kyuubimon!"

"Alright! Fox Tail Inferno!" Blue flames formed from her nine tails, launching at the insect.

"Death Behind!" Sealsdramon yelled, slicing ever more into the overgrown beetle, causing it to wreath in pain.

"Card Slash! Attack Plug-in A!" Eddy yelled, slashing his card through his Digivice and causing Sealsdramon to get stronger. Sealsdramon roared as he sliced deeper than ever before and jumped off the Digimon as it disintegrated and reverted back to an egg.

"Good job, Sealsdramon. Now, get those Dark Spirals off those things!"

Sealsdramon ran though the crowd of Hangyomon, slicing off the spirals. Another victory in the name of justice.

He hoped. The Hangyomon all the sudden changed shape, growing taller and thinner and turning into creatures of the darkness. "Come on, miss. You will make a fine queen for our god," one of them said, latching its arm around Nazz.

"What the, leave her alone!" Kevin yelled, filled with rage. Growlmon launched a fireball at the creatures, but they deflected the attack.

"On second though, our god wants the brunette instead," the lead creature said, grabbing onto Rachelle. "You will make a fine queen and you will produce an army."

"What?" the thought of what the creature said made Rachelle's skin crawl.

"He's here."

"Dude, who's here and what the heck are you things?" Kevin asked, more than a little freaked out.

"We are the Deep Ones. You seem like you would be a worthy slave." Suddenly tentacles grabbed Kevin from behind and pulled him into the ocean. Then some more tentacles came out, aiming for Rachelle. For a second, she thought she was caught, but then she opened her eyes to see Eddy right in front of her, being pulled into the water.

When Eddy saw the tentacles moving toward Rachelle, he didn't think about himself. He knew that something had to be done to stop those things from consigning Rachelle to a fate worse than death. So he ran. Time seemed to move slowly as he got in between Rachelle and the tentacles that latched onto him. He didn't know Rachelle real well, but he knew he was doing the right thing.

He remembered the dream he had about her.

He remembered when they first met.

He didn't care that they hadn't known each other very well; he just didn't want her to suffer because of his inaction.

His crest shined a purple light as his digivice started reacting to it.

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

"**SEALSDRAMON SUPER EVOLVE!"

* * *

**

Ingrid Third was surprised at the form of a giant Tank emerging from the data-sphere that Sealsdramon had enveloped himself in. Vallejo's order to stay a safe distance away definitely wasn't a bad idea.

* * *

Chaun and Edd were watching the Digimon Zero episodes that Chaun had found on the internet when his digivice vibrated. At first Chaun thought it was one of the other Tamers, but when he opened it up, he found a cryptic message:

"_I know the location of the gate. Just come and find me in the Junkyard where it used to be and I'll tell you."_

"What the…" was Chaun's response.

"This is… strange," Edd reacted.

"_Also, you might want to get out of there. The feds are gonna come and get your Digimon if you don't. Get Robert too."_

"What do you think?" Chaun asked.

"It seems that whoever it is that sent this knows something about what's going on. But why did they send it now of all times? The others are on a mission."

"_I'm telling you because you are ready. One of your fellow Tamers just evolved his Digimon to Perfect."_

This time the sender was known: Plank.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Tank

A/N: Not the best chapter I wrote, but it's decent. I hope you like it. Tell me what you think.

By the way, I'm going to ask a guest reviewer to review this when the arc ends in a couple chapters. After the characters go to the Digital World, I'm going to work up some character notes and bios to put on the Ed, Edd n Eddy Fanon Wiki. I have an article there already but it's not so great. If you feel like editing it, go ahead.


	12. The Tank

Chapter 12: The Tank

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon.

* * *

The realization that the message was sent by Plank startled Edd. "This is impossible! It couldn't have been sent by Plank. He's a board for crying out loud and that's not even mentioning how he could send a message without a Digivice. Besides, chances are that if he's in the real world he'd be sawdust by now."

Chaun agreed with Ed's sentiment. "Really, man, not to mention how Jonny is in the Digital World. You know, that kid always creeped me out with his wood. Seriously, how jacked up could you possibly be to have a piece of wood as a friend at the age of 12 or 13?"

"Though I disagree with you on that, I do have to say that it is quite ridiculous that said imaginary companion would be able to tap into the digivices."

"Then again, perhaps this imaginary friend isn't what you think it is," Kudamon suggested from on Chaun's bed. "I've heard that Yggdrasil has been monitoring the former Tamers somehow using one of his servants. Maybe this is what he was talking about."

"Plank being a servant to the Digital World's god?" Edd asked disbelieving, "You couldn't possibly be serious."

"I've seen stranger things in my service as a Royal Knight."

Wormmon looked at him and then at the Tamers. "Shouldn't we find this Plank and do what he says since he has a way to go to the Digital World?"

Edd didn't know what to do. The message seemed so direct but Edd couldn't understand why the federal government would want anything to do with them as Tamers, especially considering how the only reason Digimon weren't running wild right now is that the Tamers took care of them.

"You're right, bud. We've got to get to Plank before these Feds come and get us," Chaun said. "Ready to Armor Evolve?"

Wormmon nodded. "Where in the junkyard do you think Plank is?" he asked.

"Oh, I've got an idea." Chaun looked at his digivice and found a pure white signal coming from the junkyard. Apparently Plank was emitting it. "First we should go get Palmon and Robert, but I've got just the plan for that. Ready to go, Double D?"

Edd nodded, and though he had his reservations, he was better off being safe than sorry.

* * *

Terriermon was having fun. Never before had he seen so many books in his life. At first he didn't like reading so much, especially since the English Language writes its words so strangely, but now he can't get enough of it. It helped that his partner constantly read full-fledged novels borrowed from the library.

He was busy reading a novel called 'Digital Fortress' when Robert came back to where he was at. "Hey, Terriermon, it's time to go home now."

"Aw, come on. I'm just getting started. Becker still needs to find the ring. First he talked to the Canadian guy who didn't have it and now he's looking for the fat German guy and his hot red-head female escort. Can't I just finish this chapter?"

Robert knew that wasn't going to happen. First, the store was going to close in five minutes and the announcement just sounded. Second, he had a curfew to keep. Eddy's parents weren't going to be too happy if Robert broke it. Of course, they seemed forgiving enough. Heck, Zack's dad was pretty forgiving too. Robert smiled at the thought of the laid-back Uruguayan immigrant who spoke with absolutely no trace of a foreign accent, despite starting his study at the age of 16 and being confined to his home country, a feat that Robert was amazed at.

Of course, whenever Robert got on the guy's bad side, he didn't hold back. He also never took back anything he said and he never lied either, something that Robert admired.

Robert shrugged off the thought and picked up the book. "You already read this book, remember? I checked it and 'Jumper' out at the same time."

"Yeah, so?"

Robert walked over to the shelf to put the book away and then walked back to find Terriermon climbing another shelf. "Terriermon…"

"What? I saw a book that I never read. Ooh, 'Twilight', what's this about?" Robert cringed when memories of his being forced to read the novel for a book report came back to him. His mother loved the series, and made him read the first book when the assignment came up. Needless to say, Robert hated it and decided to write his report portraying Bella as a whiney girl who everyone still liked and Edward as a creepy stalker.

He detested reading the book but enjoyed every minute of the report and the teacher gave him an A. Despite that, some of the fangirls chewed him out for

"Get down from there. We have to leave, now."

"Okay, okay," Terriermon protested, jumping down, his ears slowing the momentum. "Sheesh, can you lighten up."

Robert groaned as they walked toward the door. The sight surprised them. There were numerous helicopters and police cars surrounding the building and the spotlight was on him. "This is the police, put your hands up!"

"Oh, great, what did you do this time?" Terriermon asked.

Robert sighed, raising his hands. _I wouldn't be surprised if you did something. _He knew there was no escape since the Digimental card he had had been destroyed by Boogeymon.

Then his savior arrived.

He saw a familiar white fox with a bladed tale come up and stop in front of him, nobody on it.

"Get on, now, and be sure to put your digivice in stealth mode." Robert and Terriermon climbed onto the fox, who bolted as soon as they were on, evading heavy fire.

* * *

**"Sealsdramon Super Evolve!"**

Sealsdramon was powered up as a Tank began to form behind him, effectively replacing his legs. His shirt soon disintegrated, baring his grey torso with a hexagonal tattoo on his arm. His head was replaced with a yellow dragon head and cannons appeared on each side of him. Then, spikes appeared around his torso and on his hands while metal covered his dragon head.

**"Tankdramon!"**

As he finished evolving, the dark form of the Dark Ocean's god rose up from beneath the waters. First, though, the tank was going to have to deal with the deep ones that were around the beach without hurting the kids. He did so in quick succession, using his radar and guns to take out every last one of them. Now all that remained was the master himself.

Tankdramon, Machine Digimon, Perfect Level, Virus Type. Special Attacks: Striver Cannon, Gatling Blast.

Tankdramon felt as if he had been in this form before. When he was still Sealsdramon, he was feeling a sense of déjà vu, and that only increased earlier when he realized he couldn't devolve back into Commandramon. He also knew his attacks well and that using his Striver Cannon when Eddy, Kevin and Guilmon were being held hostage by the enemy was out of the question.

Memories started to flood forth as he remembered destroying an entire village with that attack.

Were they his or not? Did he really do such a thing?

His anger caused him to shoot at the enemy's head.

"Dagomon, Perfect Level. Dude, like, that thing is a Digimon!" Nazz gasped, looking at the tank attack the sea monster. Then she looked back at Dagomon itself. "Dude, is that Eddy and Kevin I see?"

Dagomon roared, launching more tentacles. "Gatling Blast!" Tankdramon yelled, shooting off his gun and destroying every last tentacle that came his way. He managed to use only 100 of 3600 bullets so far, and he wasn't willing to use all of them yet. He was at a disadvantage, being consigned only to land, and he was going to use the distance as best he could. The problem of his tamer remained though: how was he going to take care of him?

"Holsmon! I need your help. Proceed toward Eddy with all haste!"

"Got it!" The eagle flew toward the enemy, Ed holding onto it.

"Hang in there, Eddy! Halsemon'll save you!"

Holsmon shuddered at the mispronunciation of his name. Then again, his Tamer seemed to learn about Digimon by watching the dub. At least it was better than those monster movies the big lug watched constantly.

"Kyubimon, Growlmon, I need your help too!" Tankdramon called, his voice booming.

"What would you like me to do?" the vixen asked.

"Attack the monster, aiming them at the head!"

**"****Onibidama!"**Kyubimon caused flames to form around her tails and launched them at the eldritch abomination that appeared before her.

Growlmon unleashed his Exhaust Flame attack, though the distance caused the attack to arc into the creature's stomach as it moved forward.

* * *

Eddy was only being kept conscious by his crest's power it seemed. He evolved his Digimon to Perfect, something that Kevin only dreamed of at that point. Eddy had wondered whether the crest of friendship belonged to him, but that didn't seem to be the case. If it weren't for his brother's explicit use of a blue card to evolve to Perfect, then Eddy would have wondered how Kevin was going to evolve his Digimon.

Eddy felt as if he was about to dose off. _Don't give up now. Remember Clayton and Zack, how you've got to go to the Digital World and meet them. Then there's Jimmy. You've got to go save him. Not to mention your brother…_

_ Don't. Give. Up._

Eddy forced his eyes open and looked straight down at the sea. He had to get back to Peach Creek to get Zack's iPod. Eddy had no idea what the guy looked like, having looked through the gallery on the thing and finding too many people to narrow it down to. He checked out Robert's yearbook again that afternoon and found a couple of kids named Zack, but it was his guess as to which one it was. Zachary McClosky, Zack Wergin, or Zacarías Zamudio? Who was it?

Eddy saw Holsmon coming with Ed on it. Then he heard the tentacles that held him snap, causing him to free fall for a few feet before ending up in Ed's arms. "Hey, Eddy, Ed's here to save you. Your Digimon's soooo cool! I wish I had him as a partner."

"Ed, I'm your partner. Don't you dare look at another Digimon like that," Holsmon grumbled.

Eddy laughed lightly. "Don't mind lumpy."

"I'm still getting used to him."  
"Yeah? It could be worse. You could be partnered to Sarah."

"Don't remind me."

Ed started crying loudly because of Eddy mentioning his sister as Eddy got out of his arms and onto Holsmon's helm. He looked at his digivice: the parts that were black were now a purple color.

"So, what about Kevin?"

Kevin disappeared underneath the mass of tentacles just after he said that. Holsmon was still hovering around Dagomon, avoiding attacks left and right. Being an armor level, the Digimon couldn't do much damage to the eldritch abomination, but could at least defend himself.

Eddy opened up his digivice and looked at his Digimon's stats. Then he put it in the proper mode to communicate with him. "Any luck, Tankdramon?"

"Kevin seems to have disappeared from my radar, Eddy, I can't seem to get him out of there. Sir, if I use my most powerful attacks, I will most likely kill him. I don't want that."

Eddy looked at the enemy. He realized that wasn't a choice that he could make. Even if they were at the Mega Level, he wouldn't be able to take a shot at his friend like that.

* * *

Kevin found himself attached to a wall inside a chamber in Dagomon. He didn't know why things were the way they were or why the enemy wanted him as a slave. He wanted out though.

He took a deep breath and looked around. It looked like the inside of a living creature: red and pink cables crawling up the wall, some pulsating; humid air; the stench of rot.

What surprised him though was the figure in front of him, also tied to the wall. It was a human, in his late 20s with black hair. He was taller than Kevin and wearing nothing from the waste up. The man wasn't even conscience when Kevin encountered him.

"Oh, crap, what the heck happened here?" Kevin asked himself, shocked. He wondered if this was what happened to Dagomon's servants. What happened to this man? Then Kevin noticed something right next to him: a faded digi-egg of some sort with green and red rings.

Kevin looked at the man's digivice attached to his belt: it was green and black much like Eddy's second digivice. He shivered and wondered how it was possible that two digivices of the same color even existed. He looked at the necklace around the man's neck: it was Eddy's crest. Now he was really creeped out.

This must have been the Tamer that fought Dagomon. This raised some questions: how many years ago did they fight? Who is this guy and how the heck did Eddy's brother get his digivice? Did they deal with Dagomon while they were in the Digital World six years ago?

"Dude, this is giving me one big headache."

Kevin took his digivice and looked through his partner's eyes. Eddy's Digimon had evolved into a giant siege tank of sorts and he was just coming back to shore. Kevin knew that with the Digimon they had now it was hopeless.

What if Dagomon had him as a slave? Would he end up like this man? "Dude, this is so screwy." Kevin had this forboding. He checked the info on Tankdramon and his fears were made clear.

"Striver Cannon? No way…"

* * *

Things were getting worse. **"Thousand Whips!**" Dagomon yelled, his voice darker than anything anybody could imagine, causing shivers to go down their spines. The attack unleashed numerous tentacles on the Digimon, causing them to recoil.

Eddy realized this. He couldn't win by his strategy alone and he needed help. He looked around at the others and noticed Ingrid and Vallejo watching from a distance. That's when he remembered hearing from Rachelle that Ingrid's the smartest kid in her school so he waved for her to come to him.

"What do you want?" she asked coolly.

"I need you to help me find a way to get Kevin out of that thing."

Ingrid looked at him with a look of confusion. "But… I don't know much about Digimon. It's not like I can help you with that."

Eddy was getting hopeless.

Then his digivice beeped. He opened it up to find the visage of Kevin looking straight at him. _"Dude, you need to get out of here."_

"But… Kevin. We can't leave you behind. You're the one in charge."

Kevin chuckled, but it wasn't out of humor. _"Oh, man, you still haven't figured it out. Ever since you became a Tamer, the leadership role has been slipping toward you. Come on, man, you've gotta get out of here, otherwise, you guys and your Digimon are gonna be totally screwed."_

"But…"

_"Don't worry, man. You'll know where to find me. It's not as if I'm going to be somewhere else. Just take the others and get out of this world."_

"But how?"

_"Man, didn't you notice the portal that was formed when Ed knocked down that Dark Tower?"_

Eddy was surprised he didn't notice that. Unfortunately, the portal was shrinking. "Hey guys!" he called out to the others.

"What is it?" Rachelle asked.

"We've got to get out of here."

Everyone except for Ingrid thought he was nuts. "Dude, you can't be serious," Nazz complained. "Kevin's still in there!"

_"Don't worry about me Nazz!"_ Kevin called from the Digivice. _"Just do what Eddy said. If you guys don't, you won't be able to go to the Digital World and get Jimmy and Sarah back. Besides, if you destroy Dagomon, then chances are you'll kill both me and this other Tamer that's trapped in here."_

"Another Tamer?" Eddy muttered under his breath.

"Guy's, he's right," Ingrid said. "We've got to get out of here now before that gate closes or else we'll be trapped here."

Then, they looked up and only saw a slither. Eddy held up his digivice and a white light came out of it. "Come on! This worked on the show."

"Let's go home, guys!" Ed yelled shooting a beam of light from his digivice.

"I hate doing this, but we have no choice. Kevin! I promise I'll be back," Nazz said, holding out her digivice and shooting a beam from it.

"This isn't over by a longshot…" Rachelle muttered under her breath, raising up her digivice. Then a platform of light appeared underneath their feet.

"Come on, Digimon! Time to leave!" Eddy yelled. All the Digimon devolved back to their Child forms with the exception of Growlmon and Tankdramon. Growlmon remained an adult and Tankdramon devolved a bit further to his second Baby form of Missimon, a small blue-headed missile with green arms, wings and thrusters. They immediately boarded the platform as Dagomon made it to the shore.

_"Just so you know, dudes, Eddy's now the one in charge,"_ Kevin said through the digivices.

"Oh, brother," Rachelle griped, rolling her eyes.

Eddy had no idea that he'd have so much weight on him so quickly and he was surprised at how willingly Kevin gave him his position. It hadn't been that long since he'd been made a tamer and this was already happening. His eyes got downtrodden as he looked at the monster that made it to the beach, hoping to get a taste of them. Before it could get to them though, they had reached the barrier, which closed beneath them.

* * *

The team found itself in the middle of a sunflower field at night. The stars glistened and the moon was full. None of them knew exactly where they were and as soon as they got back to the real world, they put their digivices into stealth mode.

Eddy realized being a leader wasn't going to be easy. He had his full share of it as the unofficial leader of the Eds with all the scams that failed and the need to manage the other two with their conflicting personalities and habits. It was funny how the other two had been complete opposites and then there he was, the third wheel, the one who kept them from killing each other. Or perhaps they kept themselves from killing him. Then again, that was the past and now they had to go get the one who helped pulling them out of their scamming ways.

Eddy looked at the map on his digivice. The area seemed really familiar but why did they end up there?

He walked on, finding a brick building on the edge of the sunflower field. It seemed so familiar. "Hey, guys, do any of you remember coming to some place like this?" he asked, holding Missimon in his arms.

"Hmm… the place doesn't look remotely familiar," Rachelle said.

"Dude, isn't that the old factory?" Nazz asked, "You know, the one you guys went in when you were running away from us."

"Wow, guys! It's the Gag Factory! I remember this place. Let's go in and play some pranks like last time!" Ed exclaimed.

Even though Eddy thought it would be fun, he definitely wasn't in the mood. Having another one of your friends get stuck in a parallel world tends to do that to you.

"So, what do you say we go inside? It's not like we've got anything better to do," Nazz suggested.

They walked around to the front and through the door to find something unexpected.

* * *

"Sir, we picked up a gate from that second digital world," Trish said, examining the information displayed on the wall of the sphere computer room they were in. "It's in Lemon Brook."

"Good to know. Send our forces there ASAP," Cox said, flicking his lighter.

"Well, if someone isn't too eager to break the monotony, eh?" Cox heard behind him.

"What do you want, Symanski?"

"What do I always want? To play with my toys, of course!" The mysterious scientist was shrouded in darkness. "Besides, from the looks of it, the Tamers' Digimon deserve a good thrashing and it's not like anyone cares about that abandoned factory in Lemon Brook. Also, when have your forces actually been successful in capturing a Digimon, eh?"

The blond looked straight at Symanski, whose circular glasses seemed to be all that showed. "I hate to admit but you're right. Go ahead. It's not as if those Tamers can evolve their Digimon very far."

"Gladly," the scientist said, holding up his purple and green imitation of a digivice.

* * *

Kevin woke up after what seemed like forever. He tried moving his hand but realized that it was now covered by tentacles. The other guy was still there, unconscious. He wondered if he ever woke up while he was out. Then again, how long had he been here?

"Yo, dude!" Kevin called out. "Wake up!"

The man moved in response, groggily lifting his head that felt like a lead weight. "Wake me up later…"

"Dude," Kevin mumbled.

"What? You're in labor?" The guy was obviously dreaming.

"Um, wake up!" Kevin practically yelled. The guy snapped to his senses. He looked at Kevin, confused.

"Oh, great. So I'm stuck here with a kid."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "Um, dude, it seems like I'm stuck with an old man."

"I'm not old. I'm all of 26. What are you? 12, 13?"

"13" Kevin replied.

"13, eh?" The other guy smiled. "What kind of music do you like? A little Smashing Pumpkins? Maybe some Bon Jovi or REM. Never mind, the last couple of bands are probably a bit old for you. I know, you're a big Nirvana fan or maybe a fan of Foo Fighters or Pearl Jam, as long as you don't like the Backstreet Boys or anything like that."

Kevin looked at the guy. "Um, dude, how long _have_ you been here?"

"Well, I'm a bit groggy. Must have fallen asleep for a few hours or so. Wait, what music do you like?"

"Uh… Green Day."

"Dookie, right? I have that tape."

"I have the CD."

"Expensive."

Kevin chuckled. "So, like, how'd you get stuck here?"

"My Digimon evolved to Wingdramon and we had to defend this village from this guy. Lost, horrifically, unfortunately."

"You've got the same exact crest as my friend Eddy. Care to explain that?"

"Maybe a duplicate."

"Why would he have a duplicate when we've pretty much been recycling old ones? He got his brother's crest from the back of an old car."

"Hmmm… Good question." The man paused for a few seconds. "I didn't know there were others with Digimon like me."

"There's a bunch of us. Did you ever run into the Empire and the guy in charge of it or anything?"

The man shook his head. "I haven't heard of any sort of government in this world other than the three celestials. Oh, and Iggy."

"Iggy?"

"Yggdrasil. I'm trying to find him so I can go home."

"What year is it?"

"1998, why do you ask?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Destiny

A/N: Just a short chapter finishing up the final arc and introducing a character that plays a major role later on. I know, he's not named. It's more mysterious that way.

Sorry if Kevin and the new guy's music tastes sound lame… I don't really listen to Green Day all that much myself. Used to about the time American Idiot came out along with a bunch of other Pop-punk and punk bands including Flogging Molly. Then I got into Alt Rock, Indie Rock (Death Cab for Cutie, anyone) and other things, though my music tastes haven't really expanded that much.


	13. Destiny

Chapter 13: Destiny

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the series represented in this fanfiction…

* * *

Robert could feel the Digimon coming to a stop. It was in the middle of the night and the Digimon finished its stride in front of an abandoned factory: The Lemon Brook Gag Factory. Robert had never heard of the place and didn't care to know, but there they were.

"So, Reppamon, you mind telling me what the heck we're doing here and why the heck those guys were after me?" he requested as he got off.

The fox devolved into its ferret-like child form and rapped itself around Robert's neck, whispering in his ear. Kudamon didn't feel like explaining, he's had to do way too much of it in his day, so he simply whispered in the brown haired boy's ear: "Why don't you go in and look?"

Robert nodded. "Don't you think it's a bit weird having Kudamon around your neck like that?" he heard Terriermon ask, but decided not to respond. Now wasn't a time for questions, but a time for answers. He opened the beat-up and hole ridden door and found two familiar figures standing in front of something that looked to him like a Stargate.

Edd was to the right and Chaun was to the left. They were examining the thing, trying to figure out how to work the thing when Robert walked in, and so they looked behind at him. "The gate…" Robert said to himself in astonishment.

"Yeah, and guess how we found it," Chaun said, looking at Robert.

"I can't even begin." Robert waited for a few seconds. "Okay, how'd you find it?"

"This piece of wood led us to it," Edd said, holding up Plank.

Robert stood there, stupefied. "Okay," he spit out slowly. "How'd you really find him?"

"That is how we found him," Chaun said. "I know it's completely jacked up and all, but the wood can communicate with our digivices."

Robert still didn't believe them. "Well, however you found it, here we are. We just need to get the others and then go through it, right?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"They can't figure out how," Robert looked past the two guys to see Palmon. "Not to mention the wood's pretty quiet about it."

Robert took a deep breath as Kudamon jumped off his neck and around Edd's.

* * *

Eddy opened the door to the factory to find the others there, along with the portal. "Huh?" he said loudly, "What are you guy doing here? And what's with the portal?" He walked in further, the other kids and Digimon following him.

"Plank led us to it," Chaun told him.

"Don't tell me he's talking to you like he did Jonny."

"Eddy! We have a somewhat viable explanation for this," Edd started to explain, "Plank told us through our digivices."

"What's Plank supposed to be?" Vallejo asked, walking in. "Sounds like something from a pirate movie."

"Plank, as in Jonny's friend?" Nazz asked, just before Palmon jumped up and hugged her.

"Oh, Nazz, I was starting to get so worried. Where did you go?"

Nazz's tone went somber. "I went to the Dark Ocean, dude."

"We all did," Rachelle said.

"So, what's your partner Digimon?" Robert asked Vallejo.

"Well, I don't have one. I'm not really planning on getting one either," he replied.

"Same here," Ingrid said. "It sounds like a lot of responsibility to be a Tamer."

"Oh, okay. To each his own, I guess," Robert said smiling.

"So, when can we go to the DigiWorld, guys?" Ed asked, eager as always.

"Well, we need to get the portal working, first of all," Edd stated, "It's strange, as it doesn't seem to have a way of supplying power to itself."

Eddy looked at his digivice. "Wait, what if we did the same thing here that we did to get out of the Dark Ocean with the digivices?" Eddy held his out. "It might work." But… nothing happened. He looked at the thing and complained. "What the…? Man, how come this thing doesn't work when you want it."  
"Hmm…" Ed muttered, looking at the portal blankly. He then ripped Plank out of Chaun's hands and put the piece of wood into a small slot on the side of the portal, causing it to activate.

"Awesome, guys! It worked."

"Oh my, Ed! You did it!" Edd exclaimed. "You really do know how to surprise us."

"So, how are we going to get Plank to go with us so those guys from Insomnia don't use this portal?" Eddy asked.

"I believe it's Somnus," Ingrid corrected. "I have an idea, though." She pulled Plank out of the side of the portal and looked around. "Aha!" She grabbed another piece of wood with the same width as Plank and stuffed it into the side. The portal lit up again, the green tunnel brought to life.

"So, this is it?" Chaun asked.

"It seems so," Wormmon replied, looking into the portal.

"You know, this one isn't sucking us in like it originally did. I wonder why."

"Maybe Plank isn't running it. How's that for a suggestion."  
"Let's go through!" Nazz yelled, running toward the portal.

Then Edd realized something. "Excuse me, but where's Kevin?" he asked.

They all looked downtrodden and uncomfortable. "He's still in the Dark Ocean, dude," Nazz stopped to say. "We have to find a way to get to him using the Digital World when we're stronger."

Edd nodded. "Let's go, then. It's too bad the Federal Government is after us and I can't say good bye to mother and father, though."  
Nazz nodded. "I wish I could say the same to my mom. We don't know how long we're going to be in the Digital World either."

Eddy agreed with everyone, though he had mixed feelings about everything.

"So, let's go in there for everyone, dudes, whether it's Kevin, Jimmy, Garrett or Zack!"

Eddy's eyes bugged out when he heard the last name. "Crap!"

"What is it, Eddy?" Edd asked.

"I need to go back! I promised myself I'd bring Zack's iPod back to him. Seriously, I need to go home."  
"It's too late now. Besides, how did you get something like that in the first place?" Edd asked. Robert didn't hear the first part of the conversation, though and was curious.

"Like what?" he asked, walking up to the two of them.

"It turns out Eddy had your friend's iPod," Edd told him. He suddenly got a really confused look on his face.

"What? How the heck did you get that?" he asked Eddy.

"Um, well, Lee Kanker stole it and brought it with her from the Digital World. She uploaded naked pictures of him and everything and I couldn't bear to think of her with it anymore."

Robert was disgusted. "Wait, naked pictures of Zack? I think I'm gonna be sick. Why would _anyone_ want to see him naked?" He shuddered. "Do you have any idea what he looks like?"

"Nope. I deleted the pictures as soon as I could. I did snoop around your yearbook but I couldn't figure out who he was. Not to mention, practically everyone from your school is in his iPod's photo album. I swear he spent half of the 64 megabytes…"

"I think you mean gigabytes, Eddy," Edd corrected. "They haven't had hard drives that measured in megabytes in years."

"…gigabytes…" he glared at his friend, "… on pictures."

"Um, Eddy," he heard a mechanical voice say. It was Missimon. "I can go get the iPod for you and come back in record time."

"Okay, go ahead. Just don't let the bad guys get to you."

The missile gave what passed for a nod and flew through a window, breaking it. "Wow, that Digimon is death on property," Vallejo said, commenting on Missimon's departure. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to leave," he said, walking toward the door, but not before giving his final order. "Ingrid, be sure to bring them all back in one piece and I expect a report on this when you get back. Got it?" Ingrid nodded.

"Don't want to go to the Digital World, huh?" Eddy asked.

"Nah, I'd rather not miss school or anything. Besides, my parents are gonna be ticked once they find out I'm in Lemon Brook so going to another world would be even worse. See you around." He waved them off as he went through the door.

"So, now we just have to wait for Missimon to get back," Eddy stated.

"Well, maybe you want to wait, but I'm going," Rachelle said. "Everyone with me?"

"Might as well," Chaun said. "We've been waiting for this chance for too long and who knows when we can do this again."

"Alright dude, I'm coming too," Nazz said.

"This is so cool, we get to go to the Digital world and see all the Digimon and fight evil Digimon and bad guys and…" Ed trailed off. "Lets do it!" He yelled, running into the gate with Hawkmon in his arms.

"Again, please let go of me!" Hawkmon said, struggling as Ed jumped through the gate.

"Ed!" Edd called out. "I'm sorry Eddy, but I just can't let Ed go on his own like this. I hope you don't mind." He ran into the gate with Kudamon around his neck. Eddy looked on in surprise.

"See you later, dudes!" Nazz said, walking into the gate with Palmon.

"I hope Missimon comes back," the dimunitive plant Digimon said.

"Well, see you around," Rachelle said, going through the gate with Renamon closely behind.

Ingrid just looked at the two boys for a second and moved on through the portal.

"So, who's going to keep an eye on Eddy?" Chaun asked, seeing that it was only him and Robert there, other than the Digimon.

"I'll do it," Robert volunteered.

"Wait, I can take care of myself. Besides, how long will it take for Missimon to get back?"

Chaun ran through the portal as Robert replied. "Who knows? Besides, I don't want the feds finding you and beating the crap out of you. Then there's the whole thing with my friend's iPod. You're going to give it to me once Missimon's back, right?"

"Here's the thing: I promised myself I'd bring the thing to your friend myself."

"Not good enough. Besides, when have you ever been that responsible?"

Eddy paused for a second. "You know, sometimes you're worse than Double D." Eddy opened his digivice and clicked a few buttons so that he could see what his Digimon could see.

"He's at my house now."

"Already?"

"Yeah, really. It's been what? Five minutes? At least this means we won't be stuck here for very long."

"Yeah? Then again, Missimon could end up forgetting where it's at. He has a tendency to do that you know," Terriermon said.

"Terriermon…" Robert muttered.

"What? It's true."  
"So, why didn't you end up defeating Dagomon and saving Kevin?" Robert asked.

"Well, if Tankdramon would have used his attacks to destroy Dagomon, he would have probably ended up killing him and this other Tamer inside the thing."

"Other Tamer?"

"I don't know any more details than that. Anyway, if Tankdramon would have used his most powerful attack on that thing, he would have wiped us all out and not just Dagomon. I couldn't let that happen."

Robert nodded. "What was the attack?"

"The Striver Cannon."

"Wait, I heard about that," Terriermon said. "It unleashes a nuke destroys everything in 20 kilometers, right?"

"Um, yeah. I remember hearing about the atomic bombs in Japan during history class a few weeks ago and the effects they had and none of that for me. That is unless it was a last ditch move and we had protection. You think I did the right thing?"

Robert nodded. "I think you did the only thing you could do."

"Yeah. Kevin told me to do it too, but I still feel a bit guilty."

"Kevin told you to leave him inside the belly of some giant H.P. Lovecraft reject?" Terriermon asked, "Man, what was he smoking?"  
"Terriermon!" Robert snapped.

"What, it's true."

"Yeah, and Robert, you still have those yellow goggles?"

"Um, yeah, why?"

"Let me see them for a sec." Robert pulled the goggles out of his jacket pocket and gave them to Eddy. "Why does this not surprise me?" he asked himself looking at the name inside the goggles.

"What?"

"Look here," he said, pointing at a name: "Derek."

"Wait, that's your brother's first name, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Man, I don't know how you got these things but hey, whatever," Eddy put the goggles on his head. "How do I look?"

"Like a dork," Robert said. "I got those from my friend Zack, by the way. I don't think he'd be happy seeing you with them on."

"They're not his," Eddy said. "Besides, why the heck did he give them to you?"

"I don't know. He just told me to take them with me. I have no idea where he got them, either. He's worn them off and on since I've known him." Robert chuckled for a second. "Of course, he can't wear them at school."

"Figures. Well, Kevin made me leader of the team, so I might as well wear them like the guys on the TV show."  
Robert looked at Eddy with a morbid fear. "He did what?"

Eddy's response was interrupted by the sound of an explosion outside. "Don't tell me Missimon crashed into this thing!"

"Somehow that wouldn't surprise me," Terriermon said. The two of them ran outside to see a lone figure: a tall man in a lab coat with short brown hair, a large pointed nose and circular glasses.

"Well, if it isn't the kids who've been wreaking all the havoc lately, eh?" the scientist said, mockingly.

* * *

Vallejo made it to the middle of downtown Lemon Brook and finished his phone call. It would be a few minutes until his parents got back and all he could do was wait.

_Was I right in letting the other kids go to the Digital World, especially Ingrid?_ he asked himself. Obviously, the thought of sending a group of kids to another world was something that bothered him and sending one of his top Safety Patrol members was something not to be taken lightly.

"Oh, well. Not much I can do about it now, right?" He just wanted to sleep. He didn't know the whole story and didn't want to think about it now.

He looked at his watch. It was almost eleven. It was hard to believe so much has happened in the last little bit and that things like Digimon existed. In some ways he envied the others who get to go to the other world. At least they get a change of pace from going to school for once.

_Heh, with Ingrid on their side, and with Eddy leading them, they'll get out alright._

_ I hope…

* * *

_

"Professor Symanski," Robert said, glaring at the adult in front of him.

"You know him?" Eddy asked, surprised.

"You can say we've had an acquaintance," Symanski said.

"Yeah, it's because of your portal technology that we ended up in the Digital World."

"Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure what happened back there. It seems that the portal somehow malfunctioned and turned on. I didn't intend it, honestly."

"Yeah, spare the pleasantries, Professor. Two months later, all three of your kids disappeared and there was reportedly a power surge in your lab, where they happened to be. How about explaining that?"

"They did something that they weren't supposed to," the scientist put his finger on the middle of his glasses, pushing them back into his head. "Believe me, I had nothing to do with that, just like I have nothing to do with the deletion of your Digimon in the next few minutes."

Eddy's eyes bugged, "Robert, we've got to get out of here!" Eddy inched his way backwards before bumping into something, a purple ball with purple and green wings on both sides. It had an eerie eye looking straight at Eddy. "What the-?" He pulled out his digivice. "Gizumon AT, Adult Level, No attribute? What gives?" Eddy scowled.

"It's an artificial Digimon," Symanski said, "I tried creating others, but this is all I could make. Quite the accomplishment if I say so myself."

Eddy stepped back from the artificial Digimon, keeping his eye on it so as to not be caught unaware. Then he looked at his digivice again, switching screens so that he could see his Digimon's location on the map.

He was five miles away. "So, Robert, how about you evolve your digimon and take this guy on. He's an Adult Level, right, so it should be a piece of cake."

Robert nodded and held out his digivice. "Terriermon evolve! Galgmon!" The towering dog-rabbit with gun-arms dodged several attacks from Gizumon AT while Eddy and Robert got out of the way, hoping to find a way back into the Gag Factory. Eddy looked around the corner at the side door, but realized the thing was locked from what he remembered and without a Digimon to shoot it open or Ed to smash it open, there was no way to get in it. Robert just watched the demented scientist, who watched the battle with a smile on his face.

Gizumon was an unfamiliar Digimon to the two boys, but Robert remembered someone talking about it.

_Oh, yeah, I remember. It was early on in seventh grade…_

**"So, this new Digimon series just started airing on the net. Have you heard anything about it?" asked a shorter guy with black rimmed glasses and brown hair. He was talking to someone that looked remarkably like Eddy. Robert was there too and they were all wearing school uniforms and they were in science class, sitting at the same table.**

** "Uh, yeah. I've been watching it. Not too impressed by it though, I mean, they took out the level system and everything and the characters don't seem to have as much personality like they used to," the Eddy lookalike said.**

** "Yeah? I'm kind of a nerd for anime, so I was just wondering since you're like the one guy in the school who's into Digimon and all that stuff."**

** Clayton had a confused look on his face. "Into Digimon? Well, ever since I first watched Savers when the dub was on TV, I've seen all the seasons, but I didn't think I was that into it."**

** "I wouldn't have thought that if it weren't for the Digivice you've had attached to your belt." Clayton grabbed the small rectangular device. It was black with blue trim and a blue ring around the front display. There were also white buttons underneath the ring around the display. **

** "I don't remember where I got this, to be honest. I've always had it."**

"**Which season did you think was best?"**

** "Well, the first one had the best characters for such a large cast and the third had the most interesting and layered plotline with excellent characters to boot. Season five had an interesting plot even though two of four main characters weren't all that well developed. The season had an interesting villain too."**

** "Yeah, what was he like?"**

** "His name was Kurata and he was a mad scientist with artificial Digimon called Gizumon that deleted and absorbed the data from other Digimon so that the bad guy could feed this monster and basically conquer the world with it. Heh."**  
What if that's his intention? Robert asked himself, balling his hands into fists.

He realized though that Symanski's Digimon was taking it slow and barely attacking. Galgomon didn't look at all injured. Symanski looked straight at Robert when the boy walked toward him. "I see you want something."

"Yeah, like what are you planning?" Robert asked.

"If you want to know whether I'm planning on resurrecting an ancient evil, don't worry, I'm not."

Robert's been lied to before. He knows this man too much. The guy's got the reputation with him that makes it so he can't be trusted. "Tell me the truth."

"I already did. So, what do you know about me, eh?"

"Pretty much everything."

"You can come with me if you want."

"Nope, not a chance."  
"You do know… right?"

Eddy ran around the corner just in time. "What's going on?"  
"Nothing at the moment," Robert told him. "And yes, I do know."

"So your mother hasn't been keeping any secrets."

"Um, what the heck is happening?" Eddy asked, confused about what the others were talking about.

"Symanski is… he's my…" Robert took a deep breath. "He's my father."

Eddy was startled. "What?"

"Yes, that's right, Edward. I'm his father. I'm a changed man, though from that time. You know, working for the government, having a respectable family life, all that."

"So, how about you get your little puppet out of the way and let us through?" Robert asked, clenching his fists tighter.  
"Okay, I will." Symanski paused for a second. "On one condition."

"Yeah?"

"You come with me. Just think, I can come clean about my worst sin against my wife and you can finally have a relationship with your father. Besides, from what I know, you don't even want to go to the Digital World anyway, am I right?"

Robert stood there, shaking. Admittedly, the offer of going with this man so that Eddy could go to the Digital World was tempting, but Robert realized doing so would get on the bad side of everyone he knew.

Besides, what would Zack think of him once he found out about this? He probably would understand, but that didn't mean he'd be happy. And then there was the question of what would happen if they ended up on opposite sides. Of course with him working for the Empire in whatever Eddy's brother is having him doing, that's already likely, but joining Symanski, someone who has plans that are even more hidden from view than Eddy's brother's search for Yggdrasil would be even worse.

Robert knew of only one thing to do. "I refuse. I'm going to the Digital World even if I don't really want to. I can't leave my friends behind like this."

Symanski got a concerned look on his face. "That was precisely the answer I was hoping you wouldn't give. Say goodbye to Terriermon." Gizumon AT made its eye glow, using its AT Laser attack and damaging Galgomon's shoulder.

"Okay, you stupid robot! Take this!" Galgomon yelled, shooting at the thing, which in turn made its appendage grow longer and skinnier. Galgomon blocked a strike with his gun-arm, but in turn cracked it. Then the artificial Digimon stuck Galgomon again before shocking him with the tentacles underneath it.

"Oh, I'm spent," Galgomon said as he plopped down to the ground from his injuries.

"Galgomon!"

"One more time, I'll make the offer."

Robert had to choose between sacrificing his Digimon in a battle that could result in neither of the Tamers going to the Digital World or betraying his friends.

"I…" It was a hard choice, far harder than Robert would have expected.

"You made it!" Robert looked over to his side to see Missimon in Eddy's arms with the iPod, a USB cable connected to it. "Thanks a lot. Now, could you help us take on this moron and his freak of nature?"

"Sure, Missimon evolve! Commandramon!" Commandramon proceeded to camouflage itself in the walls. "Catch me if you can!" Gizumon AT just looked at the building behind him, backing up from the door while Robert ran over to Galgomon.

"Come on, man, Gizumon's distracted," he said. "Give him all you've got!"

"Right," Galgomon said, trying to get up and, when he realized he couldn't, just aimed his one usable gun-arm at the monster in front of him and fired. "Gatling arm!" The bullets still seemed to bounce off the enemy but at least they were making progress.

"DCD Bomb!" Commandramon yelled, briefly coming out of camouflage underneath the machine to attach a bomb that exploded, causing some damage to the tentacles on the bottom.

Galgomon got up and aimed at Gizumon, but when he tried to fire one of his cartridges, it broke apart revealing his large hand. "Uh-oh." It turned out the other one was out of ammo.

Gizumon scanned the wall, looking for any sign of Commandramon. Then it fired, causing the cyborg lizard's camouflage to fail and then for him to fall to the ground. "Commandramon!"

_Great, we're losing. Commandramon's way to exhausted to evolve and my Digimon's disabled. How can we possibly win?_ Robert thought to himself. Then he remembered the thing around his neck. He pulled out his gold colored crest and looked at it. It was starting to rain.

**"Weird how those ancients believed in stuff like fate, huh?" Robert asked Clayton. They were sitting next to each other in separate desks in history class.**

** "Yeah, really. The thought that everyone's destiny is controlled by some supernatural power seems pretty unfair to me to be honest."**

** "What is destiny, anyway?"**

** "The ancient Romans pretty much believed it to be doing what the gods wanted and in Spanish, the words destiny and destination are the same. I guess it's ultimately where you're going. Sometimes you can't control it and sometimes you can. Then there are the times you can control your future and yet you don't really accept it."**

** "Interesting thought. I guess the ancient thought of destiny doesn't really exist."**

** "Nope, we've got free will, though we do have numerous outside influences that prevent us from doing everything we want or need to do. That's when it's hardest to accept where you're at."**

_That's it, I haven't really accepted the fact that I'm going back completely._ That's why I stayed behind instead of Double D. Robert lifted his gaze at the monster that stood in front of him. "No more of that," he muttered to himself, prompting the others to look at him. Then the crest shined.

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

"Galgomon! Super evolve!"

Galgomon shot in all directions as he turned into his Perfect form, a green version of the Rapidmon armor form he had become in the past but with a red upside down triangle instead of the crest of Destiny.

"Rapidmon!"

"Eh?" Symanski grunted to himself as he saw Rapidmon disappear and then reappear above Gizumon, kicking the thing in the back of the head. Then Rapidmon shot at it with his arm cannons and it disintegrated. "Impossible!"

"Sorry, Symanski! I'm going to the Digital World and you can't stop me!" Robert yelled at the mad scientist standing ahead of him. "Come on, Rapidmon, let's get Eddy and Commandramon and get the heck out of here," he said, getting on top of his Digimon, who proceeded to pick up Eddy and Commandramon, holding them while Robert rode on its back. Rapidmon flew through the gate but not before unleashing missiles from his back missile launchers to destroy the gate behind him.

"Are you nuts!" Eddy yelled as Rapidmon increased his speed.

"Hold on, this is gonna get real rough!" Rapidmon said as his wings glowed and he went as fast as he could without endangering his passengers. After a few seconds, the other end could be seen and then they were clear and Rapidmon landed as he devolved back to Gummymon.

"Wow, that was…" Eddy trailed off, falling backwards into the ground. It was in the middle of the night in the Digital World, too.

"Whoa, did Terriermon just go to Perfect?" Chaun asked, trying to play a card game with Edd using a flashlight.

"I guess so," Robert said. "He destroyed the gate too while he was at it."

"Good, dude, 'cause I, like, don't want any of those creeps from the government coming," Nazz said.

Rachelle and Ed were both sleeping. "You know, this actually doesn't look too much different from the real world," Eddy said.

"Where are we, anyway?" Robert asked.

"Does WWW Continent ring a bell?" Edd asked.

"Um," Robert opened his digivice to view the world map. "You have got to be kidding me. How did we end up here?"

"How should I know?" Chaun said. "It didn't bring us here last time."

Robert received a message from Plank. _"I figured this would be a good place to start."_

"What's that supposed to mean?" Robert asked.

"Don't ask me. Ask the wood," Chaun said, pointing to the wooden board next to him.

"So, now what?" Nazz asked.

"I guess we ought to camp out here tonight," Edd said. "A good suggestion, don't you think, Eddy?"

Eddy shrugged and then asked "So, how do I look?"

"I'd rather not comment."

Soon after that, they went to sleep with Edd keeping first watch. They were going to need it since they had a long road ahead of them.

They were finally there.

* * *

Symanski looked at the charred ruins of the gate. He was so close too. Oh, well. He pulled out his cell phone and called Cox, who was pretty ticked to find out the whole thing. _"I was afraid you'd lose."_

"So, what do you have in mind now?" Symanski asked.

_"Well, I might as well get a group together to go to the Digital World. There are only two known tamers left, the foreign boy Rolf, who declined to go with his friends but who's now in custody and then a girl named Jessica, who's flying into town tonight with her parentsWe also picked up one of the accomplices from X who didn't want to go to the Digital World himself."_

"What else is happening?"

_"We invited the parents over to Somnus to brief them on everything we know. The girl Jessica's father is going to tell them everything he knows about how to cope with their problem."_

"Oh, him. This is going to be quite the occasion, don't you think?"

_"Unfortunately, we don't have much time. You see, according to our probes, the gateway's stabilized again and time in the Digital World is back to how it was a year ago."_ Symanski's eyes bugged out in surprise.

"In other words…"

_"A minute in the real world is now a day in the digital world. In another six hours, a year will have passed there. We have no time and we have no idea how the digital world's time will affect the children's growth patterns."_

"Hmm… intriguing. I'll make it back to the lab in a matter of minutes."

_"Good."_

* * *

Next Arc: Nation of the West

Next Chapter: The Fall of Lee Kanker

A/N: Well, that about wraps up the real world arc. I really have to shorten the comments so thanks to cooking samurai, Freddy is Eddy's Bro, Charmander Hero, and Kamen Rider DIBRAVE for your reviews. They encouraged me to move on with this monstrosity. Also, thanks to Toonking911 on the Ed, Edd n Eddy fanon wiki for being honest with one specific weakness in my writing and for editing that page. Meanwhile, I think I might go back and edit a few minor things.

Until next time…


	14. The Fall of Lee Kanker

Chapter 14: The Downfall of Lee Kanker

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon or Ed, Edd n Eddy.

A/N: The following chapter is kind of a side story and most of the usual cast doesn't even appear. Oh well. Beware, it does get more PG-13 than most of the fic before it. In fact, Lee's storyline and Eddy's fan disservice a few chapters back are the only reason it's rated T, along with a few other things. Then again, you're probably all used to it.

* * *

BlackAgumon enjoyed it. For some reason, the feeling of seeing someone suffer was exhilarating for him. Not that he was getting the information he needed by shocking Patamon, who was smoking and charred around the edges when he was lowered, but it was still fun.

"Status report?" Derek asked, showing up on screen on the control box that BlackAgumon was operating. The room was pretty dark, definitely stereotypical of a mad scientist's torture chamber. Patamon was clamped in a metal claw and separated from BlackAgumon by a wall of thick, clear Plexiglas.

"Sorry, boss, but the rat doesn't even know anything."

Derek rubbed his forehead just under his crown. "Same as yesterday, huh?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure that if I worked a little more…"  
"Here's the thing, pipsqueak, you've had three days. If the rat actually knew anything, he would have told you by now. I know you've tried forcing evolution, pain and everything else, but now's time to call it quits. It seems that the Celestials don't know anything about their former lives when they are in a lower form. Got it?"

"Um, yeah." BlackAgumon didn't like giving up one bit. He considered jolting Patamon with another burst of electricity, but decided against it. He walked out the door and shouted to a prison guard, a skinny, pink-colored knight named Crusadermon. "Take this rat and put it in a cell, you hear me!"

"Yes, sir," the Digimon said in a female voice. BlackAgumon ran to the elevator shaft and punched a few buttons. It was not a good day. It didn't help that Patamon, the former Celestial Digimon didn't remember a thing about the location of Yggdrasil.

* * *

He knew something was up when he stepped into the shower area. The various black dots on the side of the wall bugged him to no end and he wanted to figure out why, so he looked straight at one of them. Then he stepped back out, pulled on some grey colored boxerbriefs, and opened the door to the main room of the studio apartment he had been sharing.

"Hey! Come look at this!" he exclaimed, gesturing to his roommate who was in the middle of a book to come. The roommate looked up from his book.

"What is it this time, Garrett?" Garrett was normally pretty careful about his appearance to the point where his roommate had never seen him wearing less than an orange long sleeved shirt and blue jeans, so this was pretty serious.

"Just come. There's something weird about the shower." Garrett was average height, double chinned with brown curly hair and blue eyes. He was also a bit hairy for a 13 year old, having it not only on his legs and arms, but also on his chest. This, coupled with a little bit extra body fat, but not anywhere near the amount his brothers have, turns away any girl he comes across.

"Do I need to call the plumber?" His roommate asked, somewhat jokingly. He was the bigger of the two, both in height and weight. He had black hair, just like Eddy and his face looked just like Eddy's, except where Eddy held out his upper lip a bit more due to an overbite or whatever, this guy didn't.

"It's something else. Elecmon!" Garrett called out, and his Digimon got up from off the couch, walking over to him and standing on his hind legs.

"Yeah, what is it?" The red rabbit-like Digimon asked with a Brooklyn accent and a bit of an attitude, folding his arms.

"Just come and look," Garrett said, walking into the shower and pointing at the black dots on the wall. "What do these look like?"

The roommate wasn't surprised. "I have no idea. They came with the room and I know Danny's room has them too and so did Jonny's."

Garrett had no idea what his roommate was doing in either room. "Reminds me. Did you talk to the Emperor about giving me his old room?"

"Yeah. He said he'd think about it. I bring it up pretty often."

Garrett arched an eyebrow. "You know, bud, I think it's pretty ridiculous that he's dragging his feet so much."

"I know, I know," the Eddy lookalike said, rubbing his eyes. They had just gotten back from a mission that day and he was drowsy.

"It's almost like the Emperor has something against me personally. I can't imagine what." Garrett had to sleep on his roommate's couch ever since he joined the search party because of Clayton's invitation. Needless to say, he was not happy.

"So, what am I here for?" Elecmon asked.

"Simple, use your knowledge of electrical currents to find out where the source of these cameras is."

"How do you know if they're cameras?" the roommate asked.

"It's just a hunch, and when I have hunches, I follow them."

Elecmon caused a small stream of blue electricity to come forth from himself and into the cameras. "Two stories up. I can't tell you anything more than that."

"What? Those are the Alias III rooms," Garrett said with a disturbed look on his face.

"Hmm… It can't be Daniel. I know he's straight," Clayton said.

"I know that other guy's pretty weird but… nah, it's definitely Lee."

"Yeah?" Clayton knew it made sense from his dealings with the red-haired Kanker, but he wanted to really make sure.

"Yeah. She was the one who led her sisters around and bossed the kids around at school. They constantly went after my cousin Eddy and his two friends, who also have variations of the name Ed."

"Sounds confusing. Must have been a popular baby name or something."

"Yeah really. Other than those three, I maybe heard about one or two more."

Clayton had a bit of a belly laugh. "Funny."

"Yeah. How so?"

"My bro's name is Edward."

"Older or younger?"

"Older by four minutes."

"Twin brother, huh?" Garrett paused for just a second as it all sank in. "Wait a second, when's your birthday?"  
"Uh, February 22, I think."

Garrett stopped as the revelation of his roommate's date of birth sank in and he looked at him with a shocked look that can't be described. "What are the chances…?"

Clayton was a bit confused. "What?"

"Do you have an older brother named Derek?"

"Uh, yeah."  
Garrett's eyes narrowed. It astounded him how little he knew about his roommate. Sure, they talked about their families and what not, but Clayton never talked about this. When the subject of siblings came up, Clayton just said he had two older brothers and left it at that.

"Why do you ask?" Clayton finally said, breaking the silence.

"Where's Derek right now?"  
"Here. He's the Emperor. Wait, you didn't know that?"  
"Heck no! I had no idea. I mean, sure a thought like that came into the back of my head once or twice when I tried figuring out why the heck I wasn't getting a room, but man! Now it all makes sense. I mean, your bro _is_ a giant dirtbag."

Clayton figured it out but wanted to be sure. "Wait, so you're saying that you knew my brother?"

Garrett nodded slowly and with determination, the one word coming across his mind being _duh._ "Yeah. It turns out my uncle is your stepdad. Funny, I didn't expect there to be a long lost _full_ sibling."

Clayton paused for a second and then took a deep breath. "I guess I'll go talk to my bro about this and get things squared away. I'll also make sure that he gives you a good room by the end of the night as well."

* * *

Lee was getting impatient in front of her TV screen. She was hoping that her 'show' would have started by now. All one of the boys had to do was turn on the shower and then the cameras would turn on. BlackTailmon had no idea what was going on and was equally confused about why Lee would want to see what she wanted to, but supported her nonetheless.

Well, of course she was a pervert, what did you expect? It was amazing that she couldn't get the other two girls to join her in this. It was beneath them now that they were on the same team as Clayton and Garrett and that neither of them found them attractive. Well, actually, May found Clayton a little attractive, but didn't act on it. Then again, she probably wouldn't have acted on her attraction towards Ed until the school year if it weren't for Lee's encouragement, and even then it would have been in more of an innocent kind of way instead of the whole 'let's forcibly make out' kind of way Lee liked and that was the staple for the Kanker family.

That is except for their aunt who became Robert's mom. Now Marie seemed to be headed in the same direction because of being around the other three. Whatever happened to the rush of dominating the stronger sex, the whole getting what they wanted? What happened to the fun?

Lee hadn't had a chance to ambush Zack since he came back from his trip like usual. She would later on that night, though, or so she thought.

* * *

"Well, yeah, I kind of knew about that."

"What?" Garrett exclaimed. He was talking to Marie and he was wearing an orange shirt under a grey jacket along with some blue jeans. "You mean that you knew that your sister was making videos of us?"  
"Here's the thing, Rusky, if I told you guys, she'd kill me. Now, I'm really sorry and I'll do whatever I can to help you guys get after her."

"How can I trust you?" Garrett glared. "I mean, seriously! She's doing something horrifically illegal _and_ immoral. Not to mention she has naked pictures of me! Honestly, the one time a girl saw me without a shirt on, she fainted."

Marie rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Here's the thing: Lee successfully escaped to the real world without either of us. Seriously, we were on a mission but still."

"Oh," Garrett was surprised. "What about May?"

"Anything to get back at that meanie of a sister!" May exclaimed, peaking her head out.

"So, what's the plan?" Marie asked.

"Well, Zack told me that she's going to be headed to the pool area at about ten, which is when he would normally be doing his swim workout."

"So, what's _he_ doing anyway?"

"Oh, nothing much. He's talking to the emperor and he's going to be off checking the other rooms for cameras while waiting for the emperor to unleash a computer virus, destroying all cameras in the showers. Oh, did I mention how I might have my own room now?"

"Wow, what an accomplishment. What'd you do?"

"Absolutely nothing. I just had a little talk with his younger brother."

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?" BlackTailmon asked Lee, who was soaking in the hot tub wearing a red one-piece bathing suit. BlackTailmon didn't like the water so she just sat on the side.

"Of course, why not?"

"Well, for starters, he doesn't really like it."

"Yeah, so? He's a man. Why do we always have to be subservient to them, huh?"

"I never said anything like that, Lee. It's just that, well… it doesn't seem right."

"Oh, shut up your conscience once and awhile. It gets real fun when you do that."  
BlackTailmon felt really uneasy. She didn't know what to think of her partner at times like this. She also felt as if maybe she was going to have to pay for going after Zack like that.

"Here he comes," Lee said, looking at the door to the men's changing room and seeing a silhouette. Then Lee got up and ran toward the person, who looked startled from his body language. He proceeded to walk back into the locker room with Lee following close behind. "I got you now!" Lee said, grabbing onto the bare shoulder. "Huh?"

It was Garrett, who had shaved off all his body hair and was wearing blue swim trunks. "Do you mind?"

"Wait, you're not Zack! Where is he?"

"Helping clean up the mess you left behind," a voice behind her said. She turned around to see a familiar blond haired male Tamer and fellow member of the Alias III named Daniel. However, he was wearing a different outfit now instead of the outfit that was originally meant to be the uniform of the three. He was wearing a blue hat, a red shirt and some tan cargo shorts. He was also wearing grey tennis shoes. Tsukaimon was resting on top of his head.

"Yeah?" Lee held out her digivice.

"You're under arrest."

"Yeah right. Who said?"

"The emperor himself. Seriously, you're a *bleeping* weirdo! Heck, you make the yaoi fangirls I met seem normal!"

"Again, with the bleeping."

"You know, we were finally starting to get along and then I find out about this."

"Well, you won't be taking me away!"

BlackTailmon looked at her partner in dismay. Sure she would support her and protect her, but she didn't agree with what was going on. "You should just turn yourself over, Lee," BlackTailmon told her.

"Yeah, right!" Lee proceeded to grab her Digimon and run out of the changing room. She ran down the hallway and out the door.

The Imperial Palace was a floating white and gold building with numerous towers that jutted up from the main platform. The Emperor's quarters were on top, taking up several floors while the second-in-command's, now vacant since Eric's defection, was just below him, taking up a couple of stories. Just below that were the quarters of the three elite guards: the Alias. Below that was where the rooms for the various members of the Yggdrasil search party were.

Then there were the prince's quarters, a small floating add-on located next to the Emperor's quarters with glowing light blue lights on the bottom and connected to the same elevator shaft. Unfortunately, Clayton refused to use them, opting instead to be with the rest of his team. It was a shame to Lee that they wasted such perfectly good space. Lee was on a large grassy balcony outside the tower, many stories down from her quarters and she realized she couldn't get there in time to grab her stuff, or whatever it was that didn't already get confiscated.

"Come on, girl, it's time to evolve!" Lee exclaimed.

"But, you should just turn yourself in!"

"Oh, please, like I'd ever do that. That ain't the Kanker way."

BlackTailmon knew she had no choice. Lee wasn't a very good partner, and often resorted to violence whenever she didn't get what she wanted. Daniel was like that too, but BlackTailmon saw him changing. He and Tsukaimon just looked happier.

She envied the flying purple hamster.

"BlackTailmon Super Evolve!" she yelled, glowing black and completing her transformation sequence into LadyDevimon.

Suddenly, a giant golden mechanical wasp with a large stinger appeared. Lee recognized it. "Waspmon? May?"

"Yeah, you better believe it, sis," May said, running out of the door that Lee just came out of.

"Oh, you decided to be a traitor, huh? Where's Marie? Did she actually have sense to…" as Lee was talking, Marie came out of the same door with her Digimon, a purple haired beast Digimon with a red jewel-like object on its head between its eyes.

"Come on, Dorumon!" Marie said, having her Digimon jump out of her arms as the light of evolution overtook it.

"Dorumon evolve! Dorugamon!"

Dorugamon was a larger, dragon-like Digimon with fur that was a darker shade of purple as well as white on the tip of its nose and its limbs. It had red claws on all four of its limbs. It yelled "Power Metal," launching a metal orb from its mouth at LadyDevimon, who deflected the attack.

"So, how many of you are actually gonna fight, huh?" Lee asked. "Just the two of you can't defeat me."

"Yeah, what makes you say two, huh?" Garrett said, walking out with Daniel following along with their partner Digimon. "By the way, Danny, I think that the three of us can take it from here, so you don't have to do anything. Besides, I want to get this done myself."

"Alright, if you say so. Then again, there's not much I can do since my Digimon can only evolve to Perfect using those hacks you developed."  
"Yeah. We don't need those anymore." Garrett held out his grey colored digivice with red trim. "Come on, Lec! Let's do this!"  
"Elecmon evolve! Leomon!" the diminutive rabbit Digimon yelled, changing into a leather pants wearing humanoid with golden fur, large hands, beast-like feat and a lion's head. The first thing the lion did after evolving was attack. "Beast King Fist!" he yelled, unleashing a lion head energy blast from his left fist. LadyDevimon deflected this attack too, flying upwards with Lee grabbing onto her right leg.

"I don't agree with my Tamer's course of action, but I won't let you hurt her."

"Who said anything about hurting her?" Garrett asked.

"Yeah, she's probably just getting put in the slammer," Marie said.

"So?" LadyDevimon quickly flew further upwards with Lee, Waspmon and Dorugamon following.

"Alright, Leomon, you know what to do," Garrett said, pulling out a white card and using his determination to turn it into a blue card. He then swiped it through his digivice. "Card Slash! Matrix Evolution!"

**MATRIX EVOLUTION_**

"Leomon Evolve!" Leomon's form changed as he gained black and white armor, a white forehead protector and a long, spiky orange mane going straight upward from the top of his head. "GrapLeomon!"

GrapLeomon jumped upward and proceeded to run up the side of the building, eventually reaching the others who were at the level of Lee's room, the latter getting out and into the room through a window that LadyDevimon so conveniently broke. "Give 'em all you've got!"

"My pleasure. Darkness Wave!" she yelled, launching a group of bats at the two Digimon who were pursuing her from below.

_I can't believe it's come to this, sisters. Oh well, what can you do? _Lee thought. It had been months since her arrival into the digital world along with her sisters and Eddy's brother, and during that time they had been splitting apart. It seemed this was the final nail on the coffin.

GrapLeomon quickly dodged the bats and jumped at LadyDevimon, yelling "Lion Beast Wave Chop!" and knocking into her side, causing her to recoil, but not for long.

"Oh, please, you think that's enough to get me? Poison!" she yelled, punching GrapLeomon in the stomach and causing him to weaken, gradually turning black from the middle of his chest. Because of this, he started to fall, only to be caught by Dorugamon.

That meant it was between Waspmon and LadyDevimon, between May and Lee. May had always been treated the worst out of the Kanker sisters, partially because she was also the youngest. She realized that now was the time to stand up to her sister. She also knew that Waspmon wouldn't be able to defeat LadyDevimon on its own, so she pulled out a card. Imagine her surprise when it turned out to be a blue card. She swiped it quickly and watched the light of evolution shine from way up there.

**MATRIX EVOLUTION_**

"Waspmon evolve!" Waspmon's appearance changed with a large thick stinger jutting out in front of it and wings on its side while it gained significant bulk with a honeycomb forming above its head. "CannonBeemon!"

May looked on in awe at her digivice screen as she viewed her Digimon's new stats. "May, you did it!" Garrett exclaimed.

"Yeah, before me, even. That's a surprise," Marie commented.

"Yes!" May exclaimed, going into a victory dance.

Up in the air, CannonBeemon made its move. "Nitro Stinger!" it yelled, causing its stinger to glow and shoot high caliber lasers, hurting LadyDevimon in the process.

"No way am I going to give up! Darkness Spear!" LadyDevimon yelled, turning her arm into a lance and thrusting it at CannonBeemon, who quickly dodged and shot numerous projectiles from its blue honey-comb.

"Sky Rocket Infinity!" LadyDevimon was barraged, eventually falling down the many floors to the ground, where she created a crater and subsequently devolved to BlackTailmon. The Tamers on the ground were knocked over by the shockwave but nothing too serious.

"We got her?" Garrett asked.

"Not quite," Marie said. "Wait, where's Danny?"

* * *

Lee decided to use this as an opportunity to escape, running out the door and into the elevator with a case full of clothes. When she got in the elevator though…

"Boo!" Daniel said, jumping down with Tsukaimon on his head, startling her so that she dropped her suitcase, spilling her clothes on the ground.

"Where'd you come from?"  
"Hid in the elevator shaft. Go get her, Tsukaimon!"

"Purple Fog!" the purple rodent yelled, causing purple smoke to come from its mouth and cover Lee, who coughed for a few seconds and then passed out.

"Good work, Tsukaimon."

"So, what are we going to do with her?"

"Put her where she belongs."

* * *

A while later Lee woke up in a dirty prison cell that looked like something out of the Bastille. The cell consisted of a room, a door, a toilet and a shower. Her Digimon was next to her with a black collar around her neck. "What happened?"

"Isn't it obvious? Because of what you did, we're trapped in this place."

"Come on, why don't you evolve so we can get out of this place?"

BlackTailmon pointed at her collar. "This prevents me from evolving. Not to mention, you don't have your digivice."

Lee was furious so she ran to the door and started banging on it. "Get me out!"

* * *

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Clayton said, sitting down in the Imperial Dining Hall. It was late at night, so none of the usual staff was there to eat.

"Yeah, really. How long do you think she was spying on all of us, anyway?" Garrett asked in a seat across from him. Clayton just shrugged.

"Good question. I heard she had pictures, but I have no idea where she put them."

"Uh-huh. That's pretty gross. Besides, why'd anyone want pics of guys like us?"

Clayton shrugged again. "Beats me. Then again, I bet my brother looked just like me so, who knows, maybe the similarities…"

"You're kidding. Your brother's _way_ shorter, man. Not to mention, he's been at the same height since the age of eight and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon."

"Actually," Daniel started talking, pulling up a chair at the table, "I didn't thing that Eddy was that much shorter when I met him."

"Yeah? Something must have happened. Was he balding too?"

"Nope. He had a full head of hair, but whereas this guy's hair is kind of down a little bit, Eddy's is pretty spiky."

Garrett didn't have any words.

"So, did you see Double D there?" Marie asked, sitting down along with May.

"Which one is he?"

"He wears a hat." Daniel was disturbed a bit by the memory of the hat burning.

"Oh yeah, the bald guy." Daniel shivered.

"What did you call him!" Marie snapped.

"Whoa! Sorry!"

"Yeah, you better watch your mouth next time!"

"What's the ruckus over here," a waiter, a small tentacled and beaked vegetable with squinty eyes and a feather headdress asked. The Digimon was a dark green color and the kids at the table immediately identified it as Zassomon. It had a reputation for being the most ill-tempered waiter in the restaurant.

"Oh, sorry, please forgive my friends," Clayton said. "They just got in a little argument."

"Oh, okay. So are you chumps going to order anything or what?"

"Yeah, I'll have an iced tea with lemon, sweetened if you would."

"Just water for me," Garrett said.

"Lemonade," May requested.

"Coffee, black," Marie said.

"I'll take a coffee, black as well," Daniel requested, receiving a glair from Marie. He noticed this and asked, "What?"

"Nothing."  
"Coming right up. You better tip good!" the irate plant said after writing down the order.

"So, what's the rooming situation?" Garrett asked.

"You get my current room and I have to take the prince's quarters."

"I hear the prince's quarters has a giant hot tub," May said.

"And an indoor swimming pool," Marie said.

"Actually, I have no idea _what_ it has. I haven't actually gone in it," Clayton told them.

"Yeah? How come you didn't take it before, huh?" Marie asked in an interrogating manner, causing Clayton to blush and sweat profusely.

"I just didn't want to be seen as way higher than you guys. Then there's how I wasn't even going to be using it most of the time anyway."

That's about the time Zassomon came with the drinks. "Here you go, chumps."

"Thank you very much," Clayton told him.

"Yeah, thanks," everyone else said at once, before drinking.

"You're welcome. Just remember to tip."

"Okay, I'll handle that," Clayton told the others.

"You better. Anything else?"

"Nope, I'm fine," Clayton said.

"Same here," said Marie.

"Ditto," Garrett replied.

"Alright, see you around, chumps." Zassomon just walked away.

"Hey, just wondering: where's everyone's partners?" Daniel asked. It turned out he was the only one with his partner, who was hanging out on his head.

"Sleeping," Clayton said.

"Yeah, Elecmon decided to hit the rack on the couch," Garrett told him, "Then again, LadyDevimon's attack did a number on him."

"FanBeemon's the same way. It was the first time he went to Perfect, after all," May said.

"Then there's the ever lazy Dorumon," Marie said. "Ugh, I have no idea what I'm going to do with him."

Garrett chuckled briefly.

"What is it, Rusky?" Marie asked angrily.

"Oh, nothing."

* * *

Daniel had just gotten back to his room and flopped onto his plush green waterbed. _Oh, what a day_, he thought, _I had no idea that getting back to getting along with those guys would be so easy._ He thought about Clayton and how utterly surprising his forgiveness was. As for the others, he didn't really have any beef to settle with them. Soon his eyes were shut and just as he was about to fall asleep with the lights on, his digivice vibrated.

On it was a simple message: "Come to my office." – Derek

* * *

Next: The Reasons of a Tamer


	15. The Reasons of a Tamer

Chapter 15: The Reasons of a Tamer

* * *

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Well, duh, what did my message say? I'm sending you on a special mission. You see, a group of Tamers seems to have emerged from the real world and the ambassador of El País Occidental wants us to deal with them. The idiot feels that all Tamers are aligned with us and that if they do anything stupid, he'll declare war. That's _not_ something we want."

"Wait, why me?"

"Oh, man, where do I start? First, your loyalties have been really divided, lately. Got it? Then there's how everything else went. Last night for instance. You didn't even do anything to stop LadyDevimon!"

"That's because Garrett…"  
"Oh, shut up. I know what you said. Just go already. I developed a teleportation program to take you to where the Tamers were last seen. No complaining, got it, pipsqueak?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Can I at least say goodbye to everyone first?"

"Sure, go ahead."  
"By the way, could you stop calling me pipsqueak? It's getting really annoying."

"I call whoever I want whatever I want."

* * *

Edd found himself viewing a battle. The two Digimon were Tactimon, a black samurai Digimon with a short sword and Imperialdramon, a large blue-colored dragon with massive amounts of armor. "Good lord," Edd mumbled to himself as the large dragon Digimon unleashed a energy blast from the cannon on its back, which Tactimon merely deflected with his sword.

_Imperialdramon… but how? And why?_ Edd thought. He couldn't say it aloud, since it was a dream and therefore not under his control.

After his first move, Imperialdramon got attacked by Tactimon, and then split back into two Digimon and quickly became Imperialdramon again. Edd had heard about Jogress Evolution from Chaun, who holding his friend Zack's digivice managed to merge his Digimon with Zack's to form Dinobeemon. This time though, from what Edd could discern, Zack was the one with the Digivices and was the one jogressing them at the Perfect Level to make a Mega.

From what Edd could tell, it was the only method of Evolution to Mega they had at the moment.

"Now if only we could go to Perfect," Edd said to himself, noticing his partner Digimon Reppamon walking up to him.

"Hurry, we need to go out of here."

"I realize that. I know Chaun and Zack are merely buying us time."  
"That is true. And yet you wish you could do something."

"Absolutely. Of all the Tamers that were in the team before Eddy left, Ed and I were the only ones to not reach the Perfect Level. And you know how the power of your Perfect form is the same as a Mega."

"Yes. However, you didn't have the courage to aid HolyAngemon in the battle against Velgmon."

"That's true. Then again…"

"Show courage now."

"But, even that won't make much of a difference." Edd said. He was startled when he saw a figure running up the hill. "Oh, you!" _Who is that? It couldn't be Eddy, but he looks just like him, _Edd's observing self thought.

"We've gotta hurry up and get out of here. My Digimon partner's going to help hold Tactimon off, but even if that guy gets beat, we'll still have to deal with the army that's headed our way."

"I can't…"

"We have no choice."

"I don't care! Eddy's still back at the Imperial Fortress and we have to go rescue him."

"I agree, but now's the time to withdraw and regroup."

Unfortunately, that's was the very moment when things went horribly awry as energy flowed through Imperialdramon, causing him to split up and disintegrate. Tactimon relished the absorption of the dragon's data. Then he turned toward the two of them. Clayton's face had a shocked look on it as he fell over, pain going though his body and a trail of blood crawling from his nose.

Edd knew it was over.

"Now! Show courage!" Reppamon said.

"I… can't…"

* * *

It ended there when Edd woke up, panting and sweating so much that he took off his shirt (for all the fangirls). They've been in the Digital World for two days now and so far the residents haven't bothered them that much.

Edd got up. All the guys shared a room and all the girls shared a different room, so he had to get past all the others without disturbing them. They were in an inn in a part of the Digital World where, strangely enough, a lot of the Digimon spoke mainly Spanish, including the Muchomon who ran the inn. The only one who could speak any Spanish was Robert, and he only spoke a little and with a strong accent.

Edd walked out the door to the balcony, where he looked to his side to see Nazz. Their rooms were next to each other and shared the same balcony. "Having trouble sleeping?" Edd asked, startling Nazz for a second. She was wearing her usual shirt but wasn't wearing any pants, instead wearing only boxers, which, since it was so dark out, Edd didn't notice surprisingly.

"Who dude. Yeah."

"Are you missing home by any chance?" he asked.

"A little. I didn't expect this to go by so quickly and I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to my mom."

"I have to concur. I wonder what our parents think since we've been gone three days. I'm sure those Somnus officials probably told them everything."

Nazz nodded a bit and then yawned. "What's keeping you up?"

"I had a disquieting dream where we were fighting a major battle and Ed and I hadn't even activated our crests."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"Zack's partner Digimon jogressed with Chaun's to fight a black samurai Digimon, I forgot what it was called, and it was quickly outmatched and so were the other partner Digimon. Reppamon told me that if he went to the Perfect stage, he would have had the power of a Mega Digimon."

"Did you see Zack?"

Edd looked at Nazz. "No. I saw someone who could have possibly been Eddy's brother though. He looked just like him too except for the way he carried himself. He fainted at the end of the battle. I'm not sure if it was because of the samurai or what."

"Weird dude. I wouldn't think on it too much though. I mean, like, a ton of weird things happen in the digital world, but some sort of vision of the future? That's just crazy, dude."

"Whatever it was, it was disconcerting. I think I should still try to activate my crest as soon as possible. It's just that Ed and I seem to have such mismatched crests. Whoever decided we should have them wasn't thinking right." Nazz already knew what crests he had from a meeting the Tamers had.

"Maybe he wanted you to develop a new skill or something."

"Perhaps." Edd paused for a second, taking in the night air and staring at the sky that was adorned by three moons in various phases. Edd thought briefly about the gravitational forces having three moons must exert upon the digital world, but then he shrugged the notion, thinking about how the laws of physics don't really apply here like in the real world. That was when he switched to a subject of a more personal nature. "I heard that you were having a hard time the other day when you were sucked into that dark world. Do you care to explain?"

Nazz didn't really want to think about it, preferring to sidestep the issue, but she had to deal with it sooner or later. "Well, when my brother left… I, uh, don't know. I just started getting these doubts about my becoming a tamer."

"Hmm. We all do at one time or another. When I first became one, I didn't want to do any fighting, but when I got into my first battle, I realized that with enemy Digimon such as the ones coming into the real world, I really had no choice. The question I asked myself was how could I sit by and do nothing while monsters came and rampaged along with the Tamers that controlled them."  
Nazz paused for a second. "Yeah, you're right dude. I don't know. I guess I became a Tamer partially because I wanted to help protect my friends."

"That sounds like a good reason to me. I had the desire to help Eddy and Kevin for instance."

Nazz felt a wave of sadness come over her, remembering the red haired jock who was now trapped in the same world that had claimed her.

"Eddy especially, since he still falls into old habits from before our encounter with his brother last summer. I'm sure these new developments surrounding his brother just complicated things a bit."

They both continued looking outward, unaware of the existence of another Tamer in the area, observing the two of them.

* * *

When Eddy woke up, he had a hard time opening his eyes and rolled over, finally prying them open to see that he was the only one still in bed. "What the-?" Of course, they only managed to get enough money for two rooms, so they all had to share one. Eddy, though, wasn't impressed. "Man, we should have just camped out somewhere," he mumbled, getting up. He was wearing jeans, but no shirt, so he picked it up off the ground and put it back on.

"Geez, I just had to oversleep. Couldn't somebody have woken me?"

That's when he saw a note on the wall: "Went to baths." Of course, this was a raggedy old hostel, so they didn't have public showers. Eddy wanted to at least try to peak on the girls so he ran as fast as he could, barely bothering to put his goggles back on. Heck, even Commandramon woke up before he did.

That's who he first saw walk out the door, along with the other Digimon. "Hey, you're finally up!"

"Yeah! Why didn't anybody wake me?" Eddy yelled, pointing.

"Oh, we tried but you wouldn't budge."

Then Chaun and Wormmon walked out. "Hey, dude, you're finally up!"

"Yeah, no thanks to you,"

Chaun's eyes narrowed and Wormmon said something. "At least we didn't drag you out. That was Robert's suggestion."

Then everyone else walked out, including all the girls. "Wow, you're finally up," Rachelle said, drilling into Eddy's mind how late he slept in.

"Yes, we thought you had gone into a coma," Renamon joked.

"Yeah, right, can't a guy sleep around here?" Eddy asked.

"11 hours is kind of pushing it, don't you think?" Edd asked.

"You're not helping."

* * *

When Eddy finally got done showering, he went into the cafeteria to find that everyone had already finished eating. He grabbed a couple of pastries to go and then went back to the room where everyone was busy getting their stuff together. "So, we ready?" Eddy asked before taking a bite of an apple danish.

"Yeah," Chaun said, "You ready, Wormmon?"

"Well, yes, we don't have much to carry, don't we?" the insect said in response.

"Yeah, we're just waiting on you," Robert said.

"Yeah, you slowpoke," Terriermon said.

"Um, Terriermon…"

"What, just saying the truth."

Nazz, Rachelle and Ingrid showed up behind Eddy, "You guys all ready?" Nazz asked.

"Oh, yeah, let's get this show on the road!" Chaun cheered.

"This is so cool. I hope we get to fight an enemy Digimon today. Maybe I can get my Digimon to Ultimate and win it for us," Ed hoped. "That would be so cool!"

* * *

They walked out into the lobby and Robert decided to thank the hotel receptionists: a group of red feathered penguin Digimon called Muchomon. What he meant to say was "Gracias por dejar que nos quedemos aquí," thank you for letting us stay here, but instead he said "Graciuhs parhuh dejando que queramos aquí." The Muchomon looked at him with befuddled expressions. As soon as he walked out the door, they started laughing, something Eddy heard as he walked into the narrow streets of the town they were in. There were clothes lines above them and all the buildings looked like they were made of adobe.

"Um, Robert, I think those birds are making fun of your Spanish," Eddy told him.

"Oh, they wouldn't do that."

Eddy looked back at the hostel that they stayed in and mumbled "I hate birds" under his breath, but nobody heard him.

* * *

"Hey, Ed!" Chaun said, catching up with the oaf. "I notice something different about you nowadays."  
"Huh?" Ed looked at his Digimon, who looked just as confused as he was.

"You're cleaner."

"I am?"

"Well, it does seem that his aversion to soap has vanished," Edd said, "Not a bad thing."

"Truly," Kudamon said. Something was bothering Kudamon. He had no idea what it was, but something didn't seem right.

"Then again, ever since your parents cleaned out your room and started washing you themselves, your hygiene has improved exponentially."

"Yeah," was the beginning of Ed's response. "I don't want to feel icky anymore, so I wash."

"Now the fact that you're starting to notice that is absolutely excellent. In fact..." Edd was interrupted by Kudamon's shouting.

"Get out of the way, now!" Edd ran forward as a large vermillion quadruped dinosaur rampaged through the walls of the buildings that surrounded them.

"Is that…" Hawkmon started to say before being interrupted by Ed.

"Monochromon!"

Edd pulled out his digivice. The Digimon was a different color than the Monochromon he was used to, so it could have easily been a different Digimon, possibly of a different level. He was right, "Vermilimon, Perfect Level, Data Type, Special Attacks…"  
"Eddward! This isn't time to be lollygagging! Get out of the way before that thing unleashes a fireball!" Kudamon shouted as Edd ran towards the side, dodging a flame that Kudamon warned about.

* * *

The one who was stalking the Tamers was Daniel. He was hiding behind a wall when he saw the dinosaur come between the Tamers. "Hmm. Looks like they've got a powerful opponent, don't you think, Tsukaimon?"

"Well, yes. So, are you going to go help them?"

"No, they shouldn't need my help. This is a chance for me to see how far they've gone since our last meet-" he was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder and looked behind him to see a ball-shaped Digimon with a purple mask and a sword on his back.

"¿Qué hacen aquí, Tamers?" What are you Tamers doing here?

"No estoy con ellos. Fui mandado aquí por el emperador en una misión autorizada por su gobierno." I'm not with them. I was sent by the Emperor on a mission authorized by your government.

"¡Mentiras!" The ninja, a Digimon identified as Kougamon yelled, calling Daniel a liar. The Digimon pulled his sword out of his holster rapidly, with the intention of decapitating Daniel, something that caused adrenaline to surge through his system and his digivice to glow brightly.

"Tsukaimon evolve!" The purple rodent Digimon yelled, becoming engulfed in white light.

Before Daniel knew it, it was over and the Kougamon was plastered against a wall. Daniel looked at his partner to see a form of the Digimon that he had never seen before, bringing a smile to his face.

At last, the devil theme in the Alias III had been completely averted.

* * *

Nazz knew that she had to do something. Unfortunately, her Digimon could only evolve to the Adult level, which it just did, along with everyone else's when Vermilimon attacked. The enemy dinosaur Digimon was focusing its efforts on Edd, Chaun and Ed.

A memory ran across her mind. _"Yeah, you're right dude. I don't know. I guess I became a Tamer partially because I wanted to help protect my friends." _

"**Guilmon, huh?"  
"Yeah." Nazz had just stumbled upon Kevin's partner Digimon who was hiding in the closet in his room. "I met him the other day and I guess we're partners now," Kevin showed her his digivice. The large red lizard was lying down on Kevin's bed.**

"**That's so cool, dude. You know, my brother had a Digimon. Actually, dude, he might still have it."**

**Kevin looked at her. "Wait, you knew about real Digimon before meeting Guilmon?" he asked.**

** "Um, yeah. I don't know, maybe I'll have a Digimon of my own someday. I guess I just have to become one of the Chosen Children or something. That's how my brother said he got his Digimon, even though none of them were exactly children at the time."**

** "He was chosen for something, huh?"**

** "Yeah, dude. He had to like save the digital world."**

** "Awesome." Suddenly, Kevin's digivice started beeping.**

** "What's going on, Kevin?" Guilmon asked in his childish voice.**

** Kevin flipped it open. "Dude, there's another Digimon emerging."

* * *

**

** A few minutes later, Nazz and Kevin came across the digital field in the schoolyard of all places. It was in the middle of the night so the place was completely vacant. There they ran into Chaun. "Hey, dudes, what's up?" Chaun asked as he approached them. "Guess what level the Digimon is?"**

** "Um, my digivice said Baby."**

** "Yeah, really, man. This is going to be a piece of cake without any fighting or anything. All we need is to get the Digimon and then somehow get it back to the digital world."**

** "Can I see what it is?" Nazz asked.**

** "Sure, thing, girl." The trio entered the mist, each of them shielding their eyes. Then Nazz found it, a miniature green walking plant with four legs, two beady eyes and a couple of leaves on top.**

** "Tanemon, Baby II level," Kevin said, reading off his digivice."**

** "Dude, it's so cute!" Nazz squealed, lowering herself down and picking it up. "What brings you here to the real world, hmm?"**

** "I fell down a hole and suddenly I was here. Where are we, anyway?"**

** "A place called Peach Creek. Want to come over to my house?"**

** Tanemon smiled. "You're the one, aren't you?"**

** "Huh?" Nazz was puzzled.**

** "Um, Nazz, I hate to say it but we might have to get that Digimon back to its world sooner as opposed to later," Chaun told her.**

** "Oh, don't worry, dude. I'll get her back there."**

** "But I want to stay with you," the Digimon told her.**

** "Dude, I don't even have a digivice." Suddenly, as she said that, a digivice formed above her. It was red with pink trim.**

** "Whoa, does that make you a… uh… what do you call people with Digimon again?" Kevin asked Chaun.**

** "A Tamer."**

** "I guess this means I'll be able to keep you guys out of trouble whenever a Digimon appears in the real world, huh guys?"**

** "Yeah, right," Chaun said. "I'm the only dude here with a crest, so that means I'll probably go to Perfect sooner than you guys."**

** Nazz smiled. Now she could be with her friends and she could be like her brother. Now she was a Digimon Tamer and she could protect them like Eric protected the digital world.

* * *

**

That memory and the purity of her motives was what caused her crest to shine…

**SUPER EVOLUTION _**

** "**Togemon Super Evolve!" the giant cactus said, turning around and sprouting a flower on top, from which came a fairy Digimon with pink flower petals on top of her head acting as a helmet, black beady eyes and a body suit that consisted of the same type of plant material. She also had butterfly wings.

"Lilymon!"

"No way, dude. That girl got to Perfect before me!" Chaun shouted, upon seeing the Digimon fly up. Vermilimon caught sight of her so he moved in position to fight her.

"Volcanic Strike II!" the dinosaur called out, shooting a hot crimson fireball, which Lillymon got out of the way of, moving to the right. The attack struck the nearby building, causing a green slug-like Digimon called Numemon to pop its head out and upon seeing what was going on, running back in.

"Flower Cannon!" Lillymon shouted, forming a cannon with her hands and aiming it at the enemy Digimon, shooting it and weakening it. Then she took a wreath, "Flower Wreath!" and put it around the Digimon's neck.

Unfortunately, the Digimon was not weak enough and quickly broke out of the wreath that was meant to tame it. "Verm Blaze!" It yelled, unleashing a continuous blaze and nearly frying the team, who all hid behind the corners of the battle field.

"Great, I'll have to take care of this thing the long way." _Preferably before it lights the entire town on fire, _she thought, uneasily, prepping her arms for another attack. "Flower Cannon!" she yelled again, unleashing the attack at the enemy Digimon's mouth.

"Fire Feather!" another Digimon called out from behind Lillymon, unleashing a volley of attacks from behind her, both attacks striking the enemy Digimon's mouth.

"Who could that be?" Nazz asked.

"What the…?" Eddy exclaimed.

"Well, that's out of the ordinary," Edd commented.

"That's not Angemon, is it?" Ed asked.

"Of course not," Chaun said, "This guy only has two wings. Not to mention the colors are all wrong." In fact, the new Digimon was an angel Digimon with two wings coming from his upper shoulders and a light purple loincloth and color scheme. His staff was long and had a crescent-shaped piece at the end.

"Pidmon," Rachelle said, reading off her digivice. "Angel Digimon, Adult Level. Attacks: Pid Speed, Fire Feather."

"For once we may have an ally on our side," Kyubimon said.

"Don't be so sure about that," Galgomon objected. "We don't even know what this Digimon's planning."

Then the Digimon spoke to Lilymon. "Quick, tame it. It might be weak enough."

"Alright, here goes nothing. Flower Wreath!" she yelled, forming a wreath and putting it around the dinosaur's neck. This time the dinosaur stayed put.

"Now, I would suggest getting out of here before the authorities come."

"Just who are you anyway?" Lilymon asked.

Pidmon winked. "Just a friend."

Then the angel Digimon flew off.

* * *

"So, we're back on the open road, huh," Eddy said. They were walking across some grassy plains. "How long until we get to the nearest train station, again?"

"Well, from what I remember, the station is in the next town," Kudamon said from Edd's shoulders. "I would suggest using discretion since it seems that the local government is after us."

"That would be the most prudent course," Edd commented.

"So, now we've got three Digimon at the perfect level. It's going to be a piece of cake once we get to my bro's place."

"I'm sure it will." Edd then remembered the dream and then looked at Ed. _From what I remember, he wasn't able to go to the Perfect Level either. Perhaps if I try to help him learn some things, he'll get there._ Then Edd remembered something. "Excuse me, Eddy, but could I possibly borrow that iPod you have?"  
Eddy looked at him for a second. At this point, they were looking eye to eye. Actually, Eddy was a little taller. "Sure, here you go. Just don't use up the battery," he responded, pulling the device out of his pocket and handing it to Edd. Edd eyed the device.

"Hmm… I would appear to me that this has a couple of cameras on it."

"Doesn't take too much to figure _that_ out."

"I know." Edd unlocked the device and then looked at the programs. He looked at the apps. One of them puzzled him: AnkiMobile. It was located on the bar at the bottom of the homescreen and Edd wondered what the program was so that it would be needed that much. He clicked on it and found out that it was exactly what he was looking for and it contained several decks: Sixth Grade, Seventh Grade and Robert's Spanish Deck. It was clearly a flashcard program.

Edd smiled as he opened up the sixth grade deck, which contained thousands of cards, and proceeded to reset the entire deck. Then he activated a plug-in that said initial memorization mode. Maybe this was the key to helping Ed activate his crest.

"Ed, would you please come here for a little bit?" he asked.

* * *

Elsewhere, a large black humanoid Digimon with large eyeballs on his shoulders, his chest and his knees looked at a series of holographic images floating by in front of him. "[Are you going to take this assignment?]" a voice asked him.

"[Yes. The Tamers are too much of a threat to El País Occidental to be ignored.]"

"[I knew I could count on you, Duskmon. You are one of my best bounty hunters.]" A green, cloaked figure appeared in front of him.

"[Yes, Lord AncientWisemon. I won't let you down.]"

"[You haven't let me down before, have you?]"

"[Of course not.]"

* * *

Next Chapter: Duskmon Strikes

A/N: By the way, sorry for the lack of updates. I just ran into a little writer's block.

Basically, the idea for this arc is developing Edd, redeeming Daniel and developing his character, and evolving the character's Digimon to the Perfect Level while pitting them up against various enemies (it's kind of a monster of the week storyline, except for Duskmon.)

Oh, and remember the agents that Symanski mentioned way back in Chapter 3. Of course you don't, jk. Well, you get a little info on them. Guess who Duskmon is exactly, other than simply one of them. Come on.


	16. Duskmon Strikes

Chapter 16: Duskmon Strikes

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon.

Note: My other story Repercussions also takes place in this stories continuity. Read and review if you have a chance.

* * *

"So, are you ready?"

"Yeah, just one last thing."

"We don't have all day. Besides, you don't really need to bring anything anyway."

"How can you be so sure? Have you ever gone to the digital world?"

"No. However, these devices I designed have everything you need."

"If you say so."

"It's time to go. The others are waiting."

"I know."

"You do want to find your son, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Then let's get this over with."

* * *

_"Why can't I get him to Perfect anymore?"_

Eddy rolled around a little.

_"How come he devolved a few days ago?"_

Eddy woke up quickly. He had no idea what this dream was, but he realized it had nothing to do with reality. "That was weird."

Then again, there have been things going through his mind that have been a little bit disconcerting. For one thing, he had this nagging fear that after getting back to the real world, he would turn into his brother. Then there was the problem of dealing with the bully in the first place. Eddy looked around to see everyone sleeping and so he decided to try going to sleep again.

_"So, what are you going to do, buddy?"_ he heard an awfully familiar voice ask, snapping Eddy back to life again.

"Man, this is really weird," he told himself. He looked around again to see Ed looking out of the rail car and decided to walk over to his friend. "Hey, Ed, what's going on?"  
"Not much, Eddy."

"Not much?" Eddy looked out of the train. They were traveling through some plains at the moment, though it was hard to see since it was in the middle of the night. "You couldn't stay asleep either, huh?"  
"Nope. I kept having these weird dreams about George Washington fighting the Egyptian God Osiris in the Greek underworld."

"Huh?" Eddy asked flatly. Then he realized that Ed was probably having the dreams because of Edd's relentless shoving of facts down his throat. Eddy was just glad that the iPod's battery finally ran out. He was going to have facts running through his head for weeks. "Oh, never mind."

"So, what's wrong?" Ed asked. Eddy looked at him, surprised at his inquisitiveness, but got himself together to tell him.

"Well, I have another brother."

Ed stared at him for a second. Of course Eddy didn't tell anybody else. True, there was that time when the matter was mentioned to Ed, Kevin and Eddy along with their Digimon, but due to how much has happened since then, and how Kevin was gone from the team because of being trapped in the Dark Ocean, it wasn't brought up again, not even by the Digimon.

"That's so cool, Eddy. It's like something out of one of my comic books."

Eddy rolled his eyes. "You know those aren't real, man."

"I know. It's just fun to read them."

Eddy chuckled a little bit. "Well, anyway, his name is Clayton and he's here in the Digital World."

"Yeah? I wonder what partner he has. Hey, I know, since you have a yellow digivice and your evil brother has a red one, the good brother has a blue one."

"That's what I heard. I'm afraid that he's going to be just as much of a jerk as my bro though. I mean, I know next to nothing about him. Heck, from what I can guess, my parents must have divorced when I was like one or something, and my mom took me and Derek to Peach Creek, where her ancestors are from. I have no idea what my dad was like or where his family was from. The only time I saw Clayton was when I ran across a picture on Zack's iPod."

"Yeah. Can you show me, Eddy? Please?"

"Um, Double D ran the batteries down, remember?"

"Oh yeah. We can recharge it, right?"

"Robert's laptop is down. The only charger for the iPod I had connects to that and that has to be charged too."

"Still, I want to see Clayton."

"Yeah, I can't blame you." Eddy took a deep breath. "We'll get our chance when we get to my bro's place."

"Cool."

"Like I said, I'm afraid he's just as bad as my bro."

"So, what partner do you think he has?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe he has something cool like UlforceVeedramon."

"Doubt it. Isn't he a Royal Knight like Edd's partner?"

"Yeah."

"So, the Royal Knights fought against the Empire, and lost. There you go. It couldn't possibly be UlforceVeedramon."

"What about regular Veedramon."

"You know, that's way too similar to Zack's partner."

"What's Zack's partner?"

"Veemon, I think. Chaun said something about him combining with Stingmon to become Dinobeemon, so I think it's a Veemon that evolves into ExVeemon or something. That makes me wonder what the heck its Perfect form is."

"SuperExVeemon?"

Eddy narrowed his eyes. "You know, that sounds like something out of a bad fanfic like this one."

"MegaExVeemon?"

"Can you stop that?"

"Okay. Hey, maybe your brother's partner is Monodramon or something."  
"Monodramon?" Eddy asked. He hadn't heard of the Digimon before, really. In fact, the only reason he heard about Veemon and his evolution line was from reading up on season two on the internet shortly before coming to the digital world. "Sounds like a disease."

"No. Monodramon is the rookie form of Cyberdramon, Ryo's partner!"

"Wait a second. Who's Ryo?"

"He's this really cool Tamer from season three and he spent a year in the digital world."

"Well, that's cool and all, but why do you think that he could be my bro's partner?"

"He's blue like his digivice."

Eddy just rolled his eyes. "Um, Commandramon isn't yellow and Agumon isn't red so I don't think that works."

"Tankdramon's somewhat yellow and some of Agumon's forms have red in them."

"Yeah? I saw all of season one and none of them had red in them."

"RizeGreymon and ShineGreymon do."

Eddy hadn't heard of those Digimon. "What season is that?"

"Five."

"Five seasons? You mean the whole story started in season one takes five seasons to complete? What the heck are the original chosen children doing? Are their great-grandkids the heroes now?"

"No, season five's in an alternate universe."

Eddy stood there silent. "Okay, man, you lost me."

That was when Eddy heard some ruffling. He looked over to see Sealsdramon waking up, first with a stretch and then getting up and walking over to them. "Eddy, why aren't you asleep?"  
"I've been having weird dreams." Eddy yawned after saying that.

"Hmm… so have I."

"Yeah, what's going on?"

"I dreamt I was in the Imperial Fortress."  
Eddy was a bit confused. "Huh?"

"I don't get it myself, but I was there and so were you."

"That's weird."

"You were wearing blue."  
Eddy arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, right. Blue ain't my color."

"You're right, it isn't."

Ed looked at Sealsdramon. "Oh, Eddy, I should go wake mine up and then we can all hang out and stuff."

"Ed, I wouldn't recommend that," Sealsdramon told him. "Your relationship with your partner has been strained as of late and that will only make matters worse."

"Yeah, really," Eddy agreed.

"No he's not. My partner and I are best friends," Ed said, not getting the point. Eddy wondered why the digivice didn't change him like the others, though he was cleaner and that was a major plus.

"That's not what he said."

Ed looked at Hawkmon, who was sound asleep. "Maybe all he needs is a big hug."

"Ed!" Eddy yelled and then promptly covered his mouth, afraid that he was waking the others up. The only one who woke up was Chaun, and only groggily. He glanced at the others, rubbed his eyes and looked at them.

"Um, Eddy, what was the heck that about? I seriously need some sleep, man."

"Um, well..." Eddy was having a hard time thinking up words to explain it.

Chaun looked at his digivice and saw the time. "Dude, it's three in the morning. Why are you guys up?"

"I couldn't sleep. I'm so excited about getting my Digimon to the Ultimate level," Ed said. "I'll get him there tomorrow, I know it."

"I keep saying the same thing, man, but my crest has yet to glow. I don't get it either."

"Yeah, what do you need to do?" Eddy asked.

"Well…" Chaun pulled the crest out of his tanktop, showing the blue object to the others.

"Oh, it's reliability. Cool," Ed said.

"You say that about everything, don't you?" Sealsdramon asked.

"Not everything. Cleaning my room isn't cool."

After seeing that the two were done talking, Chaun spoke again, "I guess. You see, before getting this think, I was a real slacker, getting in trouble all the time, sneaking looks at websites I wasn't supposed to, that kind of thing. After getting this and returning to the real world, I tried cleaning up my act, you see. Nah, before that. I remember reading that to activate this thing, I need to be the kind of guy someone can put faith in, so I worked as hard as I could to clean everything up about me whether I did my homework, told my parents about my problems online, or other things."

"Man, you're lucky. My parents don't ever let me get on the internet," Eddy commented.

"Knowing you and your brother, I can see why. You had a field day when you got Zack's iPod, didn't you?"

"Why, what do you mean? There's nothing on here other than You-Tube."

"Oh, heck yeah there is. Isn't the Safari Internet Browser on there?"

"Um, wait, that was internet?"

Chaun immediately faceplanted. "What! You mean you didn't know that?" Chaun slapped his mouth shut, realizing that he yelled really loudly.

"Shut up! I'm trying to sleep," Rachelle yelled at him, immediately falling asleep afterwards, or at least they thought. Eddy just sat there smiling.

"Yeah, so like, anyway, remember how I reacted when I found out that Kevin was hanging out with you guys after the whole mess you guys got in?"

"Um, a little."

"Yeah, I just about tore into him, yelling at him like you wouldn't believe. I told him I was sorry a day later, but I really shouldn't have treated him like that. He forgave you guys and I should have done the same, even though I got stuck in the same scam as him."

"How come you didn't follow us out?"

"I forgot where you guys lived and by the time I figured it out, it was too late. You guys were out of town and so were all the other kids in the cul-de-sac except Jimmy and Sarah, but who would want to go hunting you down with them, right? Now, anyway, shortly after the whole fiasco between me and Kevin, Garrett's parents decided they wouldn't let him hang out with me and the Gourd struck, all at once."

"Yeah, that was weird. I mean, seriously, you know that someone's gone all whack when he goes after everyone, even guys who weren't even there."

"Yeah… exactly. So were you guys some of the ones that beat him up?"

"No. It was the other kids except Jimmy. He beat us up first, you know."

"Yeah, after your bro about tortured you to death," Ed said as Eddy shuddered.

"You could put it that way."

"Anyway, everything just about went to crap after the Gourd struck. One day, though, I got a call from Garrett, telling me to meet him in the junkyard for a little talk. So I go, and we have a discussion about why his parents wouldn't let him hang out with me anymore, saying I was a bad influence and everything. During our conversation, though, we hear this loud noise and decide to check it out. It turned out that the Gourd had built a portal with help from Plank, and, anywho, the portal started acting all weird and everything and we were sucked in, all three of us."

"Then you got to the digital world, got separated from Garrett, and got your partner and your crest, right?"

"Not exactly. You see, this here crest wasn't always my crest."

"Wait, what?"

"It was Danny's."

"Okay, so that was Daniel's crest and you stole it from him?"

"Um, noooo, Danny gave it to me when he betrayed us."

"**Here you go, losers. I don't need this anymore," Daniel said, tossing the crest to his friends before turning his back to them as they were all surrounded by a group of Commandramon.**

"Yeah, so I got his crest and ever since then, I've been trying to activate it, but it just won't glow."

Eddy thought about it for a second. "Maybe it still belongs to Daniel."

"That traitor? Yeah, right!"

What neither of them noticed was a mysterious figure, cloaked in beige who was watching them.

* * *

Daniel wasn't far from them. Actually, he was right on top of them along with Pidmon, who didn't devolve due to the massive amounts of data that he had absorbed previously. Apparently, this was his true adult form. Daniel was sleeping while Pidmon kept watch, holding his crescent-tipped staff and covering Daniel over with his two wings.

Then they heard something. "Daniel, did you hear that?"

"Yeah, what was that?" The sound reminded them of howling. The two of them got up and looked around as best they could. Daniel looked at his digivice and saw a strange symbol on it, one that struck fear in his heart. "It's one of them?"

"You mean, the Hybrids?"

"Yeah, the symbol is obviously darkness." Daniel shuddered at the thought. "This is bad. These guys have power levels stronger than the average Mega."

"I heard. They're the ones that attacked the villages on Folder Continent, am I right?"

"Yeah." Daniel took a deep breath, shaking. "The Hybrid of Darkness was the one that couldn't Fusion Evolve, right?"

"Yes, I think you may be right."

"We may have a chance, then." Daniel shivered. It didn't help that the train was moving awful fast so that he had to hold onto his hat. Neither of them noticed the beige and brownish red robed figure that phased his head slightly above the roof of one of the train cars.

* * *

"You hear that?" Chaun asked.

"Yeah? What the heck was that?" Eddy asked.

"Maybe Pidmon has come to help us," Ed suggested.

"Nah, what are the chances of that?"

"Shouldn't we like, you know, check it out?" Chaun asked.

"Yeah, good idea. You guys go wake your Digimon."

"Maybe we should get somebody else up too," Chaun suggested. That was when Nazz moved around a little bit and opened her eyes narrowly.

"Hey, dude, why are you, like, still up?" she asked.

Chaun looked at her. "Well, we heard something above us and we're gonna go check it out."  
"Yeah, you wanna come?" Eddy asked.

"Um, maybe you guys can handle it. If not, then come and get me, dudes."

* * *

A few minutes later, Eddy opened the door to the train car a bit more and Sealsdramon rushes right past him. Eddy looked over to his left to see a ladder that he could climb and grabbed on to it, swinging over so that he could climb it more easily. Then he proceeded to climb up and saw a trio of figures on top, two on their train car and a third on the next one toward the Trailmon driving the thing. He recognized the two as Pidmon and some unknown human, but the third was something else entirely and was obviously wearing all black, otherwise, he would be able to at least see him with the light of the three moons shining on them.

Sealsdramon was growling and Pidmon was in a parrying position, ready to block in case either the cybernetic reptile or the mysterious figure in black were to attack.

Just one thing ran through Eddy's mind: Pidmon has a Tamer.

"So, just who the heck are you?" Eddy asked, the Tamer, who walked over to him just as Chaun finished climbing the ladder. Eddy didn't recognize the hat or the clothes, but when the Tamer looked him in the eyes, he knew exactly who it was. "Oh, Daniel…"  
"You got that right."

"What the heck are you doing here? And where's Tsukaimon?"  
Pidmon cleared his throat. "Yesterday, I evolved in order to protect my Tamer. I haven't been able to revert."

"Then again, this is the digital world so it doesn't matter as much," Daniel stated, "I see Sealsdramon's still at the Adult level himself."

"Yeah, you got that right. So, what the heck are you doing here again?"

"I'm on a secret mission from your brother."

"Let me guess: he sent you to spy on us."

"Pretty much."

"So, what is our mysterious visitor up to?" Sealsdramon asked.

"Good question."

"Wait, Daniel! What the heck are you doing here?" Chaun asked.

"Secret mission from the emperor."

"Uh-huh. Get out of here as soon as you can or else."

"Don't you want my help if he attacks?"

"Yeah, right. Besides, your partner isn't even around." Pidmon cleared his throat even louder. "Wait, I thought your Adult form was Devidramon."

"It was until I evolved to protect Daniel."

"I don't believe it. After all the crap he put you through!"

"Can't you guys just shut up!" Eddy yelled.

"I would have to agree with him," Wormmon said.

"One false move, prettyboy, and I'll slice your wings off like last time. Got it?" Sealsdramon warned Pidmon.

Eddy's been noticing how Sealsdramon's personality has been getting uglier and tougher. He didn't know what to think of it, especially since he had worked so hard to keep him from shooting everything in sight when he was a Commandramon. He worried about what would happen if he were to evolve to Tankdramon permanently.

"Hey, Sealsdramon…"

"Yeah, Eddy?"

"Um, please don't threaten anyone we're not fighting."

Sealsdramon simply grunted.

"So, what about this guy?" Eddy asked, pointing at the enemy on the other car.

"He just appeared. I'd say just keep an eye on him unless he…" Duskmon moved forward and drew a reddish sword from his left hand-like appendage, sprinting so as to attack.

The plan was simple. All he had to do was attack. Of course, the angel Pidmon just blocked with his staff. Of course, the other fighters moved forward as well, particularly that Digimon, Sealsdramon. Duskmon had read about them in his info on the Metal Empire's army, which they were a staple of. They were also a large part of the Guevara Empire, which replaced it. However, Duskmon had never gotten close to one.

Their speed was astonishing, however, as Duskmon knew and experienced, seeing the cyborg seemingly disappear and then reappear behind him, preparing to strike. Of course, the lizard had obviously not encountered Duskmon before, since the black human hybrid surprised him with an energy attack from his eye appendage on his shoulder.

Duskmon kept moving backwards, intentionally letting his enemy gain ground while he blocked blows. He wasn't surprised that they didn't know what was going on or that he had helpers in the form of a Saberdramon.

Ed pulled out a card quickly, realizing that evolving Hawkmon to Aquilamon would be a bad idea in such a high wind environment, something he picked up from the science drills Edd had him do earlier that day. It involved something about wind resistance.

"Card Slash," Ed called, looking at his card and saying its name, "Digi-Egg of Sincerity!"

**ARMOR EVOLUTION_**

"Hawkmon Armor Evolve!"  
Hawkmon changed into a ninja-like Digimon with white clothes, large green leaves, and spiral vines for arms and legs, each tipped with a shuriken. To top it off, the Digimon had a red Garudamon feather on the top of its head, much like its Child form.

"Shurimon!"

"Great idea, Ed!" Chaun called out. "Ready Wormmon?"

The green lizard nodded.

** EVOLUTION_**

"Wormmon Evolve! Stingmon!"

Stingmon and Shurimon moved forward to help the others defend against Duskmon, who at this point had both swords drawn and was fending off attacks from both Pidmon and Sealsdramon.

Eddy realized he didn't know much about this Digimon, so he opened his digivice and checked out the info on Duskmon. The stats didn't make much sense to him.

**Duskmon: **

**Level: Hybrid-H (Adult Class)**

**Attribute: Variable**

**Special Attacks: Geisterabend, Eroberung.**

He assumed that Adult-Class meant that the Digimon had a power level on par with Adult Digimon even though he had no idea what Hybrid meant in this context. The Variable attribute, on the other hand bugged him. What the heck did that mean?

Then again, Attribute wasn't that major of a factor in battle.

"Sealsdramon, be careful!"

"Got it!"

All four Digimon were duking it out with Duskmon, who continued moving backwards until there was one whole train car in between the Digimon and the car the tamers were stowing away in. Then he moved further back and watched as the four tamers moved ahead to be with their Digimon.

They were all on the one train car when Ed spotted something in the moonlight. "Hey, look! Is that Birdramon?" he asked.

"Um, it's a little dark for that, don't you think, man?" Chaun asked as Eddy opened his digivice up to view it.

**Saberdramon**

** Level: Adult**

** Attribute: Virus**

** Special Attacks: Black Saber, Mach Shadow, Nitro Arrow**

"That definitely ain't Birdramon," Eddy said as the large black firebird covered its chest and yelled out "Black Saber!", and then opened its wings up to unleash black fireballs at the train car behind the Tamers, blowing it up and startling the Tamers. "What the..!" Eddy exclaimed as the car the others were on separated from them and slowed down as they continued moving forward.

"*bleep*!" Daniel cursed, "Esa ave me esta *bleep*iendo." In other words, the bird was _really_ ticking him off.

"What the heck was that?" Chaun asked. Then

"Nothing. Ignore me." Then Duskmon jumped in the air and flew past them. It was obvious that the black armored warrior was going to go after the others. "One of us needs to get our digimon to the perfect level. None of you can do it still, huh?"

"I can," Eddy said. However, Sealsdramon objected.

"Eddy, if you evolve me to Tankdramon here, chances are I'll be heavy enough to destroy this car. Then there's the issue of getting over there. I'm far to slow in that form to get there in time."

Eddy noticed the fear in the voice of the Digimon and realized it was more than that. Then there was the potential of him staying at that level and gaining more unpleasant personality traits, something that Eddy didn't want.

"I'll go," Daniel said. "Worst come to worse, I'll hack evolve Pidmon."

"Daniel, that may not me a good idea," the angel said.

"Sometimes we have no choice."

"I still don't trust you," Chaun said.

"Neither do I," Eddy told him.

"Me neither," Ed finished.

"Maybe I should go with you," Chaun recommended.

Then Saberdramon came back around. "Nitro dart!" it yelled, launching two darts directly at Shurimon and Stingmon, injuring them and causing them to devolve.

_There goes that idea,_ Chaun thought.

"Hawkmon!" Ed yelled, running to his Digimon's side.

"You're going to have to trust me, guys. I may have not been the most dependable person, but please, just this once, I want to help your friends." That's when Daniel's digivice started glowing blue along with the crest of Faith, or Reliability as it's known in the English dub, that Chaun carried around his neck.

"No way," Chaun said, trembling.

"Oh, man," a tear went down Daniel's face. "That crest…"

"… is still yours," Eddy finished.

Chaun reluctantly pulled the crest over his head and handed it to Daniel. "Don't disappoint me unless you want me beating the crap out of you once I get my Digimon to Perfect."

Daniel nodded and put the crest around his neck. "Come on, Pidmon! Let's do this!"

The angel Digimon nodded as he picked up his Tamer, and flew off toward the other car as Daniel's crest started to glow.

"Hawkmon," Ed cried, holding his Digimon as Saberdramon continued flying overhead. The large Ed looked up at the black bird with disdain. Suddenly, though, the black bird was engulfed in a field of white light and fractal code, evolving into a different Digimon. The new form was somewhat humanoid in appearance with the exception of the purple crow head, and had black feathers on its wings and back. It had yellow talons for hands and feet and two golden swords, one in each hand.

Eddy opened his digivice.

**Karatenmon**

** Level: Perfect**

** Attribute: Virus**

** Special Attacks: Harmony Swords, Feather Flare**

"Sealsdramon?"

"Yes, Eddy?"

"It looks like you might have to go to perfect for this one."

Karatenmon flapped its black wings to unleash an attack, yelling "Feather Flare!" Feathers flew out from them, along with a shockwave.

The three tamers braced for an attack, but none came. Eddy looked in front of him to see another Digimon, this one cloaked in a dark red robe and a beige head covering and having glowing yellow eyes.

"Do not worry, I am not an enemy. I am here to assist you."

"Yeah? Prove it."

"Ed," The red-haired Ed looked at him. "Your Digimon has problems with how you handle him. I would suggest not dragging him around quite so much and paying attention to his reactions more."

"What do you mean?"

"Simple. You need to treat him better, ask him how he is feeling. You need to know what could possibly cause a rift in your partnership and how to prevent it." The mysterious Digimon floated over to where Ed was and put his hand on his forehead. "This may help."

Ed felt a shock go through his head for a brief second and then it was over. Ed felt surprisingly more aware. His Digimon was struggling out of his grasp, so he let go. Hawkmon then brushed himself off. "Your years of abuse at the hands of your sister and parents has caused you to become withdrawn. This should help you get over it. Ask questions. Learn from your mistakes and from others. Learn more about the world around you and not merely from the fictional universes you visit constantly as a means of escape."

Ed nodded. "Okay, grim reaper!"

"I'm not here to steal your soul so, no, I'm not the grim reaper."

"Oh, okay. Who are you?"

"My name is Wisemon." That was when Ed's crest started to glow. "I figured it was time to intervene directly. I tried a more indirect approach by showing Double D a potential future, but it was not enough and the results were not quick enough. If I did not intervene here, then you would have had a tougher battle and Sealsdramon would have evolved. The results would not have been satisfactory. That Digimon is going to be tough for you to handle, Eddy, however, it will be a beneficial journey. You would be surprised to know where it would most likely lead."

"Yeah. So, what else is going on?"

"I need the crest of friendship you have been carrying with you."

"Huh?" Eddy pulled out the crest. "Why?"

"I am going to give it to its true owner."

"Yeah? How do I know I can trust you?"

Wisemon hovered there for a second. "You _ar_e right. I have not given you a good reason to do so. I did get your friend to make his digivice glow, did I not?"

"Um, yeah." Eddy handed over the crest. "Who does it go to anyway? My brother?"

"No. He already has a crest. This crest goes to Jonny."

Chaun was confused. "Wait a minute! You said that Eddy's brother has a crest. How come he had to use the blue card when we went against him in the real world?"

Wisemon looked at Chaun. "It depends on which brother you are talking about, I suppose." Wisemon took the crest and a book appeared underneath him which he sunk down into. Then the book closed and he vanished.

Chaun, Ed and Eddy stood there stunned. "Whoa," was all Chaun could muster.

"How are you, Hawkmon?" Ed asked.

"Better now that I'm out of your grasp."

Ed nodded. "Don't worry, Hawkmon, I won't do that anymore."

"So, now what?" Eddy asked as Karatenmon hovered above them and then proceeded to decend.

"I know, maybe I can get Hawkmon to the Ultimate level," Ed said, and then paused to correct himself. "Wait, what do you guy call it?"

"The Perfect Level, man," Chaun stated. "It's what they call it in Japan. We use the Japanese Levels because, well, I don't know, man."

"Will you forgive me, Hawkmon?"

"Yes, of course." A smile seemed to cross the bird Digimon's face.

"Cool." Ed looked up at the enemy as his crest began to glow and then shine.

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

"Hawkmon Evolve!" The bird changed into its Adult form of Aquilamon and then went further.

"Aquilamon Super Evolve!" The bird changed form, becoming a humanoid bird, much like his virus counterpart but far bulkier and wearing a red mask over its head and beak. It also had bigger talons on its feet and had various patterns painted onto its arms and legs along with long blond hair and a couple of pigtails on each side of its face.

"Garudamon!"

* * *

Next Chapter: Miles Apart


	17. Miles Apart

Chapter 17: Miles Apart

* * *

He just wanted to sleep, but these weird dreams kept getting in the way. Then again, even without the dreams, he wouldn't have been able to sleep much anyway. The last straw was when he saw that tall redhead that he had never seen before but that keeps coming up somehow activate a crest and make an Aquilamon evolve.

It was still dark, of course, and he didn't want to disturb his partner Digimon who was sleeping on top of the covers and who was larger than he was. Life was stressful enough as it was. He got up, put on a robe, and went over to the nearby computer terminal to look up some information.

Username: CZGShadow

Password: **************

He shivered for a second as he thought about the password and how it was the name of someone he knew and cared about and he asked himself constantly what his brother would do if they found out about them.

He didn't want to think those things.

When he finished logging on, he went straight for the imperial database icon on his desktop and clicked it. Then he typed in a name: Duskmon. What he got was simply a Digimon profile, showing the Digimon's stats. Then he clicked on a link that said 'Notable Examples of Species'.

_One Duskmon has been seen as a member of a group of Spirit-Evolving humans that came to the digital world. Unlike these other humans, though, he can't use Fusion Spirit Evolution. Interestingly enough, since their appearance, the Duskmon has disappeared from the group._

_ Another Duskmon, quite possibly the same one, has appeared as a hired assassin underneath one of the rulers of El País Occidental. Nothing more is known about him at this time._

Clayton sat back a little bit in his seat to process this information. He didn't realize that actual Spirit Evolution using the so-called spirits actually occurred. He had done it before himself, using cards, but other than that, nothing. After his use of that technique against Derek, though, all Spirit-Evolution cards were destroyed so he wouldn't be able to do it again. After pondering that over he ran another search: _Ed Aquilamon_.

This caused an article on Ed to show up, complete with a yearbook photo that was somehow obtained off the internet. Clayton read through the entire article and was irked by how it treated this Ed character as some sort of mentally deficient kid. Then again, he was sure that his brother put part of it together.

At the bottom of the page were more links, apparently other Tamers that worked with him. Among the names were two people named Edward of some variant or another. He looked at both of them. One of them had a Kudamon and the other had a Commandramon.

_Or Sealsdramon…_Clayton was aware of the type of power such Digimon had, especially in their higher forms such as Tankdramon or Darkdramon when they were on the edge of being too dangerous to control, especially Darkdramon. He had heard of one Darkdramon who had helped his brother in his campaign against Mugendramon being sane, but that was it. Even that Darkdramon turned against Derek. Then again, Clayton would have too if he had the power once he had found out what he had been planning.

Of course that specific Darkdramon lost but managed to flee, injured. Clayton wondered what happened to that Digimon.

Once Clayton realized he couldn't get back to sleep, he walked toward the bathroom to take a shower.

* * *

"Aquilamon Evolve! Garudamon!" The large bird-man appeared right in front of the team. Eddy was dumbfounded, Ed was elated, and Chaun was smiling.

"You did it, Ed! Man, whatever that Wisemon guy did to you worked!" Chaun said.

"Awesome!" Ed exclaimed.

Eddy was confused. "Wait a sec! I thought Garudamon was _Birdramon's_ Perfect form!"

"It's both, man. You see, on Digimon Savers, an Aquilamon evolves into Garudamon," Chaun explained, stroking Wormmon on the back of his head.

Eddy still wasn't satisfied. "So, basically, that means that a Palmon or something could, like, evolve into Tyrannomon?"

"Um, no," Wormmon started to say. "They have to be the same class of Digimon. For instance, a Palmon can evolve into either Togemon, Sunflowmon or in extremely odd circumstances, something such as Veggimon or Zassomon. Betamon can also turn into Airdramon, Seadramon, or Earthdramon, depending on its environment. Agumon can also evolve into Tyrannomon, Greymon, BlackGreymon or DarkTyrannomon. There have also been instances of it evolving into Meramon or Centaurumon. Evolution is not static like in Pokémon."

"Oh, okay. Any other weird forms?"

"The Mega forms of both Palmon and Lalamon are Rosemon," Chaun added. "Or they could turn into the incredibly skanky Lotusmon."

"Man, the censors are gonna kill us," Eddy deadpanned.

"I know one time they actually explained evolution a bit. At the end of Digimon Adventure, Gennai commented that both SkullGreymon and MetalGreymon are correct forms for Greymon, but the digivice makes it so that the more controllable MetalGreymon is the most-likely form because it's the evolution meant for their purposes."

"Hmm. I still don't get it, but whatever."

"Oh, you will someday. Maybe."

* * *

Elsewhere, almost to the other train car, Daniel and Pidmon are preparing. "Ready?" he asked.

"Yes," Pidmon replied, laying sights on the black armored Digimon that was presently peeling the roof off the car.

"Now!"

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

"Pidmon Super Evolve!" Pidmon said, spinning around and then stopping as feathers flew out his back and then covered him, forming a white shell around him. Then he revealed his form: a glowing eight-winged angel with black and white armor, golden ribbons going around his body, and a purple arm guard on his left shoulder along with a long purple helmet and a purple energy sword coming from his right wrist.

"HolyAngemon!"

"Alright, man, just drop me off here and take this guy on as soon as possible."

"Got it!" HolyAngemon let Daniel down about fifty feet from the train car and then proceeded to attack Duskmon head on.

Edd was sleeping soundly when all the sudden he heard some metal tearing right above him, screeching and driving him awake. "Kudamon!"

"I hear. We must get out of here as soon as possible." The tearing stopped and Edd could see a gaping hole in the ceiling of the train car. He also noticed something else.

"We've stopped."

Everyone else in the car was woken up too. "Guys, let's go out and see what's going on!" Rachelle yelled.

That's what everyone did. Upon getting out of the car, they saw HolyAngemon and Duskmon fighting right above them. Unfortunately, HolyAngemon had to fend off two swords while Duskmon just had one to worry about.

"Is that Pidmon from yesterday?" Nazz asked.

"There is a possibility. Of course, I know next to nothing about the Digimon's evolution line," Edd replied.

"Yeah, and how about the chances he could have gone to that stage since yesterday, huh?" Robert added. "Unless he's got a Tamer…" Robert looked around and saw a figure in the distance and pointed him out. "That guy."

"Kudamon, are you ready to assist against Duskmon?" Edd asked and received a nod from the ferret, who jumped off his neck.

"Kudamon Evolve! Reppamon!"

"Come on, how do we know that Duskmon was the one who cut a hole in the ceiling?" Robert asked.

"Like, dude, that guy's covered in eyes!" Nazz responded. "Not to mention, isn't he the corrupt form of the Spirits of Darkness?"

Robert shrugged. "I don't know. I never saw the show. My friend Zack saw every episode though, along with every episode of the fan series Digimon Zero."

"Yeah, I think he told me about that. Wait, do you think that's like Empire?" Rachelle asked.

"You mean that you think it's a chronicle of a team of tamers like us? Beats me. I know Zack had some weird theories about that."

"Like his…"

"I hate to break up this conversation, but we have to help HolyAngemon!" Edd interrupted.

"Answer my question from before," Robert demanded.

"You know what, I'm going to go ask his Tamer, okay?" Rachelle suggested.

"But if he's an enemy?"

"Oh, please, HolyAngemon's probably his partner."

"Wait, I think I should go."

"Why?"

"I have three siblings in this world. Since the guy's an unknown Tamer, he's probably one of them."

Edd got a text. "You might not have to do that. According to Eddy, Duskmon attacked them and HolyAngemon is a good digimon and Daniel's partner."

Robert stared at him in disbelief. "You've got to be joking about that last part."

"I'm afraid that's what it says."

"Are you sure it doesn't say David?"

"Dude, who's David?" Nazz asked.

"One of my siblings. He's like 17 or something. My mom looked them up for me and told me about them after she went to jail. It's the closest of their names to Daniel."

"Oh, okay dude." Nazz couldn't join in because her Digimon was still at the Baby II level, which irked her a bit.

"Eddy meant Daniel."

"Okay, how did he get a HolyAngemon?"

"He evolved it using the crest of Faith."

Robert glared at the sock-wearing Ed. "And here I thought he gave that to Chaun. How could that guy give it back?"

"If it was originally meant for Daniel, then maybe it's still meant for him," Terriermon suggested.

"Good point. Ready to help out?"

"On it."

"You ready Renamon?" Rachelle, inquired.

"Absolutely."

"Terriermon Evolve! Galgomon!"

"Renamon Evolve! Kyubimon!"

"I guess I'll just stand by and watch," Ingrid commented wryly.

"Dude, someday, you'll probably get a partner of your own, so you don't have to," Robert told her, turning to walk toward Daniel.

"Do I really want one?"

* * *

Up on the train, Duskmon notices the other Digimon showing up. _Adult-level Digimon? How pathetic. _Duskmon jumped up past HolyAngemon and then slashed his sword, causing an energy blast to come from it, hitting the ground right in front of the Digimon, causing the three Digimon to flinch. HolyAngemon followed the black soldier into the air, though, aiming his wrist-blade at the enemy Digimon. Just as he was about to hit him though, Duskmon proceeded to block the sword with his own and then aim the other one at HolyAngemon's heart, getting interrupted by one of the Digimon, Reppamon, tackling him and causing him to drop to the ground.

Then shots were fired and the black knight felt his body get pounded by numerous small bullets. When he finally hit the ground, he got up wearily, looking at the four Digimon surrounding him. _Kyubimon, Galgomon, Reppamon and HolyAngemon. Some crew. Of course, this kind of damage can't stop me._

He realized jumping in the air wasn't an option, so he held out his hands and yelled "Geist Abend!" projecting energy beams from its hands and eyes, attacking everyone except for the kids.

* * *

A wave of shock went through the Tamers of the Digimon fighting Duskmon. Robert, who was about halfway to where Daniel was, had his hand in his hair, practically on the verge of pulling it out while Rachelle scrambled to grab a card from her deck. Edd looked frightened as well, squeezing his digivice.

"What should we do?" Edd asked.

"Got it!" Rachelle said, pulling a pair of cards out of her deck.

"Card Slash! Speed Plug-in B! Card Slash! Attack Plug-in A!"

* * *

Kyubimon felt power rush through her as she unleashed her 'Fox Flame Dragon' attack and actually succeeded in damaging her opponent, catching him off guard.

"Now, HolyAngemon!" she yelled.

"Heaven's Gate!" he yelled, forming a circle with his sword and creating a golden gateway that opened up, revealing a field of white inside.

Reppamon tackled Duskmon from behind, attempting to launch him into the gate, but just as the Digimon was about to fall into it, he thrust out his sword arms and launched himself out.

"This isn't going good, guys!" Galgomon said.

* * *

When Garudamon fired up his claws for his Crimson Claw attack, Karatenmon moved forward and dodged. Then Karatenmon used its Ballistic Feathers attack, flapping its wings and shooting feathers at Garudamon, who, while attempting to dodge, got hit by several of them.

"Come on, Garudamon, use that wing attack you used on the show!" Ed exclaimed, "What's it called?"

"Open up your digivice," Eddy told him.

"Oh, yeah." Ed did what Eddy said and read the attack off. "Do a Shadow Wing, Garudamon!"

"Shadow wing!" Garudamon yelled, causing his body to glow red and launch a red phoenix at the enemy, who took the attack head on. After the attack blew over, the black bird had smoking feathers, but wasn't done yet.

Karatenmon decided to make its next move, crossing its swords and saying: "Enlightenment" in a bizarre monotone. Nothing seemed to happen.

"What the heck was that move?" Eddy asked sarcastically.

"That was an attack, Eddy," Sealsdramon said.

"Yeah? It looked pretty useless to me."

The truth was that it wasn't useless. In fact, when Garudamon attacked again, Karatenmon dodged. Garudamon attempted several more attacks with its claws and Karatenmon continued to evade them. Then the black bird took one of its swords and headed straight for its opponent. Garudamon blocked its sword attacks with its claws.

Then Garudamon attacked with its right foot, shouting "Eagle Claw!", slashing Karatenmon's armor, damaging it.

Watching the battle, Eddy had an idea. "Sealsdramon!"

Sealsdramon wasn't so sure about answering. "What is it, Eddy?"

"Use your 'Scouter Monoeye' attack to find its weakness."

Sealsdramon did so, focusing its cybernetic left eye on the black bird. "If its swords are destroyed, then it is powerless. Also, Garudamon's attack cause a hole to form in its armor"

Eddy smirked. "Ed, have Garudamon attack the hole in Karatenmon's armor!"

"Got it! You hear that, Garudamon?" Ed asked and the bird-man nodded, causing its claws on its hands flair up and then thrusting them at the enemy Digimon's armor, but getting blocked by it. However, Garudamon had a backup plan.

"Eagle Claw!" it yelled, causing its feet to head upward and, while blocking the swords, attack the wound and making Karatenmon recoil.

"Shadow Wing!" Garudamon yelled, backing up and using Karatenmon's brief period of inactivity to attack him straight on with a phoenix formed from his wings. Because of the hole, the fire from the phoenix spread throughout the body, making the black bird-man disintegrate and then reform into an egg which flew off to the nearest village of beginnings since it was reformed in the digital world.

Since the strain of keeping up with the train car was so great, Garudamon devolved back into Poromon once it landed on the train. Ed quickly grabbed the small puff of a Digimon and held it in his hands. "Good job! You saved us!" Ed said, cheering it on. Then he remembered something else. "Sorry for all the times I dragged you around without you wanting it."

Poromon smiled. "Alright, Ed!"

"Now what?" Chaun asked. "We could go back to the others or we could just stay on the train."

"Um, does it look safe jumping down there to you?" Eddy asked.

"Heck no, man."

"Then we'll stay on the train. Don't worry, man, we'll meet the others later." Eddy smiled, instinctively adjusting his goggles. "Then we'll have three perfect-level Digimon, so nothing'll be a threat to us."

Chaun smiled too. Even though the crest of Faith turned out not to be his crest, the time spent trying to activate it made him a better person.

"You know, he's right, Chaun," Wormmon said from Chaun's grasp.

"Yeah, he certainly is."

* * *

Once he landed after almost ending up inside HolyAngemon's gate, Duskmon jumped in the air and raised and lowered his swords, forming a red moon and then he rushed at HolyAngemon, yelling: "Eroberung!" HolyAngemon backed up each time but Duskmon's slices kept getting closer. By the fifth slice, Duskmon finally slashed across the angel's chest, causing data to leak out of it. As he was about to unleash his death blow, Duskmon was caught by surprise when Kyubimon attacked him with her Fox Flame Dragon attack, knocking him off the side of the train car and into the ground. When HolyAngemon looked down, though, he was gone.

"Looking for someone?" Duskmon asked. HolyAngemon looked to his right to see Duskmon, who held his sword to his throat and held Kyubimon by the neck with his other arm.

"Why have you attacked us without provocation? Your attack on me is against an agreement the Guevara Empire made with…"

"What is the name of your tamer, so I can tell my superiors when I'm done deleting you and loading your data?"

HolyAngemon gritted his teeth. So far, they had a losing battle and the prospect of being deleted was greater than ever before. Still, he had some hope. "His name is Daniel."

The response from Duskmon was a massive surprise. "Daniel?" The black warrior dropped Kyubimon and brought his sword back into his body. "Daniel?"

"Yes, Daniel."

"Now, Galgomon!" A series of bullets struck Duskmon, who mysteriously and seemingly vanished into mid-air. HolyAngemon felt a wave of relief flow through his body.

* * *

"I can't believe you're here," Robert told Daniel who just shrugged. "What makes you think you can show up like this? I mean, Chaun may have been willing to give you his crest…"

"It was my crest. One time I thought it was lame to have such a crest, but now I don't feel that way anymore."

"So, will you, like, be joining us?" Nazz asked.

"I… can't. I'm sorry. While I'm working for the emperor, I have to report back to him and I can't do that while I'm on the same team as you guys." Daniel paused briefly. "Thank you for the offer. What's your name?"

"Um, Nazz."

"Good to meet you, Nazz." He smiled and started walking away. "Come on, Tsukaimon."

"Alright, Daniel!" The flying purple rodent flew behind him.

After they were out of earshot range, the others started talking. "Dude, I think he might be changing," Nazz said.

"I wouldn't put your hopes up," Robert told her. "It'll take a lot before he proves that he's actually as good a person as you want him to be. Remember he still works for the emperor."

"Doesn't Zack, too?"

Robert was taken aback when Nazz said that. "Yeah, he's probably forced to do stuff."

"I am curious about his role over there. Perhaps we should ask Daniel the next time we see him," Edd suggested.

"Like he'd tell us."

"I'm kind of with Robert on that one," Rachelle said, shivering at the name of their former leader. The topic was a taboo subject amongst the group, for more reasons than just that he was working for the emperor.

* * *

Wisemon arrived in the monastery where he was given assignments. The halls had a light brown color scheme for them and there were various rooms with signs in Digi-code above their arched doorways. Wisemon entered into one that had a sign saying 'Chosen,' but in transcribed Greek with various diacritic marks where need be.

"It is about time you showed up, Wisemon," a jackal-headed Digimon, Anubimon, commented.

"True. I felt the need to help one of the Tamers along. You are aware of the problem with the digivices, correct?"

"Absolutely. I am working on replacements for the two digivices in question, using brainwaves and memories to keep the two tamers apart. Who would have guessed that it would have been so messy using DNA to keep digivolution signals apart?"

"Excellent. Perhaps you will have them ready in time for the tamers to achieve Mega. Unfortunately, we also have another problem on our hands."

"And what is that?" Anubimon asked.

"Do you remember the Darkdramon you reverted to Egg form and then gave to Edward?"

"Yes, what about it?" Anubimon asked.

"Its level seems to be sticking at the Adult stage and it is becoming very dangerous to control. The reason why I helped one of the Tamers to evolve to Perfect was because I didn't want to risk Sealsdramon becoming an out of control Tankdramon."

"Yes, it is to be expected that memories leak through with each successive digivolution along with available loaded data. I kept Darkdramon's original data as intact as possible when I caused it to revert."

"Yet what if his memory comes back only up to the point where he was a servant of the Metal Empire and before his defection?"

"Hopefully, his memories of being a tamed Digimon will help make up for that."

"And if not?"

"One of us will have to step in," Wisemon heard a female voice say upon walking into the room. She was clad in purple armor and held a staff. She was also wearing a fox-mask on her head.

"Well, if it is Kuzuhamon?"

"Why yes. I've been on the project for a while now. Let's see, a couple hundred years. That is Digital World time of course. You've been around a lot longer, from what I hear."

"Yes, I've been around from the time of the first tamer. However, since I spent most of that time in the human world, I suppose it doesn't really count. Let's see, fourteen years, mostly spent observing."

Kuzuhamon smiled and flirtingly said: "You couldn't have _just_ been observing."

Wisemon smiled a bit underneath his cloak. "There have been times I've communicated with the children. However, those were few and far between. I was the one who recommended both generations of chosen from Peach Creek and what their crest should be."

"And I commend you for that. As for me, I recommended the chosen from Colorado Springs."

"And we saw how that turned out."

Kuzuhamon's smile turned into a scowl.

"Excuse me, you two, but need I remind you that we should not be so argumentative on sacred ground such as this?" Anubimon stated.

"You are right. I am sorry for such a comment. I guess being around the humans must have affected me more than I thought," Wisemon said.

"I too am sorry," Kuzuhamon said. "We have been under much stress lately. Then again, my choice of tamers to surround the brother Clayton was ill advised."

"However, most of them have achieved the Perfect Level recently. In fact, there is only one left: a girl who will not let go of her feelings for someone she cannot be with," Wisemon pointed out. "From the looks of their next likely opponent, though, she will have a chance to finally be able to do so. At the same time, one of the Peach Creek batch will be able to revisit the source of his lack of courage."

* * *

Eddy finally woke up as the train came to a stop. They were hidden amongst a group of boxes of freight, so they could get out without being detected. It also helped that they were toward the back of the car. Eddy stretched, and looked at his Digimon, who was ever watchful. That was a good thing despite the difficulty the Digimon was having controlling himself.

"So, are we gonna get out of here or what, Shorty?" Chaun asked, smiling.

"Man, I'm almost as tall as you and Ed, now."

Chaun chuckled. Wormmon looked at Eddy. "I doubt you're going to get much taller. You've been growing a lot lately," the green worm commented.

Chaun smiled a bit. "You know, the more I look at you, the more I think of-"

"Wakey, wakey, everyone!" Ed said. "We're at the border town, guys, and I don't want to be caught by any bad Digimon."

"He's right," Poromon said.

"Oh, yeah, let's go! Maybe we can get something to eat," Eddy suggested

"Heck, yeah!" Chaun cheered.

Sealsdramon looked at them, feelings of regret running through him. He was the last to exit the train car.

* * *

Next: Holding On

A/N: If you're wondering how the one team was built around Clayton and how Zack ended up leader instead, wait a few chapters. You'll get an answer.


	18. Holding On

Chapter 18: Holding On

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or Ed, Edd n Eddy, so don't bug me.

* * *

Sarah was more bored than ever. Of course, it didn't help that she was living in some sort of prison in another world and that all she had to do was read books, most of which were well beyond her level of understanding and meant for people far older than she was.

She was about to fall asleep again when she received a knock on her prison door. She knew who it was and got up cheerfully to say hello. "Crusadermon! How are you doing?"

"As good as I can possibly be trapped in a place like this." Crusadermon's species name was actually LordKnightmon, but Eddy's brother just called her Crusadermon to get on her nerves. It didn't really work, since she got used to the name after a while. Then again, she was a prisoner, despite her status, but she was lucky to be alive so she didn't complain too loudly. The whole situation actually helped humble her. "I have another book for you."

She slipped a book through the spot that was usually meant for food. Sarah looked at the title, 'Pride and Prejudice,' and rolled her eyes. Then again, she did have to read all the novels in the Foundation series, the Dune novels, a bunch of Star Trek novels, the complete works of Charles Dickens, Ivanhoe and a host of other books that gave her headaches while reading. "Where do you get this stuff?" Sarah asked.

"One of the Emperor's tamers, I believe his name is Zack, gave it to me last night in order that I may not be completely bored down here. He knows about me but he has no idea you're down here since I can't tell anyone outside about you under penalty of death."

"Can't you just fight them yourself?"

"Unfortunately, my power is greatly diminished due to my battle with the most powerful form of the Emperor's Digimon."

Sarah sighed. "Thank you, anyway. Can you ask for a dictionary while you're at it because these books have a lot of big words?"

"I'll be sure to do that."

Sarah smiled a bit. It was nice to actually have someone to talk to sometimes. "Oh, and did you hear anything about my brother or other kids from the cul-de-sac?"

"According to Zack, a group of Tamers has appeared in a continent to the west of us. One of them matches your brother's profile. I also heard that he managed to get his Digimon to the Perfect level. Zack didn't talk too long but that much I did get out of him.

"Thanks." With that, Crusadermon left. Sarah smiled at the thought of her big brother coming to save her.

* * *

A few hours after the conversation between Sarah and Crusadermon, Clayton was about to enter an elevator going up to his brother's office. He was dressed up for that, even though he didn't really need to be, wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt and a green tie. When the doors opened, he was greeted by a surprising Digimon: Tactimon. Clayton just walked in and stood next to the samurai, who was as still as a statue. Since he didn't like how silent it was, he decided to strike a conversation with the Mega.

"How are you today, Tactimon?"

"I've been better. From what I hear, there's going to be a war soon and I'll have to get ready for that. The battle will be glorious."

"I'm sure." He wasn't impressed.

"Where is your partner Digimon? Shouldn't he be with you?"

"Yeah, but after the way the last mission turned out, he needs his alone time, even though we've been back for a week."

"You and your comrades-in arms sure took your time coming back."

Clayton nodded. "Yeah. We originally wanted to go all the way to finding Yggdrasil, but only half our team could evolve to Perfect and then my crest stopped working and… well… you've read the report. It's kind of boring here, to tell you the truth."

"Hmph."

When the doors finally opened to his brother's office, he was surprised to find someone else already there, talking to his brother.

"I'm sure we can work something out about them. I would say we should set up a new version of the Alias III to investigate the group that made it to that border town and, if Eddy is there, retrieve him."

Clayton sat down in the available of the two chairs and looked at his brother, who was wearing the usual regal attire while laying his feet on the desk. Tactimon just stood behind them. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"You say something, Pipsqueak?"

"Here's the thing: Eddy can get his Digimon to the perfect level if he needs to. His Digimon's perfect form is the incredibly dangerous Tankdramon, who has the power to destroy an entire town." Clayton took a deep breath.

"Yeah? We have nothing that says he can do that, Clayton."

"Actually…" The figure in the second seat, Damien, stared at him while waiting for him to continue. He was the least formal of the group, wearing all black leather including a sleeveless black leather shirt that covered his skinny frame. In addition, he was wearing chains. Then there was the ball with bat wings and talons perched on his shoulder, PicoDevimon, who he claims isn't his new partner, but one can never be sure since he had had so many.

"Go on…" Damien urged.

"You see, a couple nights ago, I woke up because of a dream that involved a Digimon, a Wisemon, jumpstarting the evolution of another tamer's Digimon. He did so because otherwise Eddy would have made him evolve into Tankdramon and he did _not_ want that to happen. If that Digimon couldn't evolve into Tankdramon, that would have been an empty threat."

"Okay, how do you know any of this actually happened?" Derek asked doubtful.

"Yesterday, we received a message from Daniel saying that the very same tamer I saw in my dream, Ed, got his Digimon to the perfect level." Clayton took a deep breath before continuing on. "You see, I think Eddy and I might be linked somehow. Our Digimon have constantly been at the same level for the past little bit. When he was first reported to be in the digital world, my Digimon spontaneously devolved back to his child form. Later on, about the same time as that battle where one of the tamers got a Lillymon, my Digimon got back to the adult level."

"Man, that is weird. I swear, whoever made these digivices was high on something," Derek commented.

"We are identical twins."

"Yeah, right. You and Eddy are way different. He's short, you're tall."

"I have a bit of an explanation for that."

"It probably sucks though. Dismissed."

"Well, basically…"

"What the heck are you doing, boy? I said you were dismissed. Now get the heck out of my office before I send in the Dobermon."

Clayton knew his brother wouldn't do that. Unfortunately, he also knew that his brother was probably going to go ahead with the new Alias III idea anyway and as he walked into the elevator, he thought about how he was going to quietly break the news to the most likely candidates.

* * *

Edd stood in awe as he viewed the region they were headed into from the top of a mountain. It had been a day and a half since getting separated from Eddy, Ed and Chaun and they still had a ways to go. It didn't help that there weren't any town in between where they were and where the others were, though there were plenty of inns in between, each about a day's walk from each other.

Then again, the view consisting of a vast valley with mountains and an ocean even further on was almost worth the hassle. "Fascinating, isn't it?" Edd asked.

"Yeah, really. Reminds me of Colorado for some reason," Robert commented, walking up next to Edd. "Except of course Colorado didn't have an ocean thirty miles from the Rockies."

"True." Edd looked at his digivice. "It looks like thirty miles is about right, actually. There is a possibility we'll be there in two or three days."

"Hopefully the others can survive until then," Kudamon said.

"I'm sure they can."

"I'm not so sure about that!" Terriermon objected. "They've got only two Digimon that can go to Perfect."

"Terriermon! So do we!" Robert snapped.

"But knowing Eddy, he'll probably blunder the whole thing. Watch, the Alias III'll attack them."

"Doubt it," Kudamon said, "If the Alias were still together, then why would Daniel be in this area?"

"What would stop Eddy's evil brother from making a new team?" Terriermon asked.

"The number of Tamers, for one thing," Edd said. "For instance, how many tamers do we actually know of?"

"Let's see: Damien, Zack, Garrett, Bobby's three siblings, maybe the other two Kanker sisters."

"Precisely."

"Then there's the original team from six years ago other than Eric, so that's three more. _Then_ there's the first Tamer from who knows how long ago."

"You might as well count in Kevin and the guy he met from inside Dagomon," Robert said. "But I can't see them doing anything against us."

"I guess you may have me there," Edd surrendered.

"So, what now?" Rachelle asked, coming up from behind them. "Are we going to get a move on or what?"

"In a few minutes," Robert said. "We're just taking in the view, that's all."

"Ugh, seriously, we don't have all day. Those two kids are probably still rotting in the Emperor's dungeons. Not to mention the others who are the Emperor's prisoners."

"It's hard to believe he's Eddy's brother," Edd commented.

"Oh, they're both idiots."

Edd's eyes opened wide. "Rachelle!"

"What? I'm telling the truth."

"How well do you actually know him?"

"Yeah?" Robert joined in.

"Well enough."

"Okay, what do you have against Eddy?" Edd asked.

"He's a shallow, selfish, conniving, idiot who's only leader of the team because he got a blessing from the former leader. Not to mention, he thinks he can run things just because he has Zack's old goggles. Seriously, Robert, he's your best friend and he gave them to you for safekeeping right before we left. Is that a way to view his sacrifice?"

"I can explain. He asked for them and he showed me his brother's name on the goggle-strap!"

Rachelle gave him a funny look. "You sure he didn't forge it."

"Positive. I would have noticed. It wasn't his handwriting. He was also nice enough to let me stay at his house."

"He was?"

"Yeah. We got in a few arguments, but it wasn't anything too horrible."

"Oh, whatever. He still doesn't measure up to Zack."

"You know, I still need to meet this Zack fellow before I can draw any conclusions," Edd told her. "Besides, think of how much Eddy had to go through over the years."

"Like?"

"He had to deal with an abusive older sibling from the beginning. Believe me, I've seen it."

"Derek didn't seem so rough last time."

"You weren't there when we went to Mondo-a-go-go."

"Yes I was."

"The first time last summer? If you were, you would know how horrible it was. Eddy's brother just… oh I can't say it… and right in front of everyone too!"

Rachelle's eyes grew wide. "No way. Did Eddy's brother… Oh no, I think I'm going to be sick." Rachelle ran off to get rid of her lunch.

"What did he do?" Robert asked.

"He twisted his ankle around past the limit it's supposed to go."

"Oh, here I was thinking he got him naked and..."

Edd looked at Terriermon. "Good lord! Have some decency!"

"Terriermon," Robert chided his Digimon again.

"What?"

* * *

Rachelle looked in a stream of water. _Was I really too harsh on him?_ she asked herself.

"You have to answer that yourself," Renamon replied, materializing next to her.

"Hmm. What do you think?"

"I have no opinion on the matter."

"Then again, look who I was comparing him to."

Renamon smiled slightly. "Then again, Zack and Eddy were raised differently."

"That is true." Rachelle smiled, though she wasn't truly happy. "It's just, Eddy looks so much like…"

Her sentence was interrupted when Edd came running down the hill, yelling out to her. "Rachelle!" He finally stopped about five feet in front of her. "I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding. You see, Eddy had to endure massive amounts of physical abuse, right in front of us. He was practically living a lie up to that point as well, thinking that he could make friends by being just like his brother."

"Oh, sorry I kind of got the wrong idea."

"Well, so did Terriermon."

Rachelle laughed at that. "That Digimon doesn't know when to shut up."

Edd smiled. "There are other things I've noticed. For instance, Eddy's parents have been married only since about two years after he was born and I'm pretty sure that that's not his real father."

"Hmm. Yeah?"

"Well, I came up with that idea since we encountered Eddy's brother. You see, both Eddy and his brother have straight, thin, black hair while their 'father' has brown, thick, curly hair. Also, when I checked Eddy's family genealogy after an incident in the fall a year and a half ago, he wasn't even on it, nor was his mother. I figured something fishy must have been going on too once I met his cousin, Garrett."

"That's Chaun's friend…" Rachelle realized.

"Yes. Not to mention the logic of Eddy looking like his ancestors from at least twelve generations back didn't sit well with me with my knowledge of genetics and biology."

"You've got a point there. That reminds me of an episode of Star Trek where Captain Janeway looked just like her ancestor from nearly 400 years earlier. So, what else?"

Edd was startled by her admission. "You watch Star Trek?"

"Well, I had a certain friend, who you probably heard all about by now, who was a big fan of the show."

"Intriguing. Now, personally I have to meet this Zack."  
"We will once we get to the Empire. You want to see what he looks like?" she asked.

"Why, certainly. Would you be willing to show me a picture of him on the way back?"

"Sure," Rachelle smiled as the two walked back toward the camp. Unfortunately, just as she was about to grab her wallet to show the picture she had in it, the two of them fell down a hole along with Renamon and Kudamon.

"Oh, dear, what have we gotten ourselves into?" Edd asked.

"It seems we may have fallen down some sort of trap hole," Kudamon suggested.

"Beware, I sense Digimon," Renamon said.

"Figures," Rachelle complained.

"I'm sure we can climb up the walls," Edd walked over to one of them and started climbing, but ended up falling down because of a lack of upper body strength.

"You ever consider working out?" Rachelle asked somewhat humorously.

"I wouldn't recommend doing that again, Eddward," Kudamon told him.

"Unfortunately we have no choice. There's no other way of getting out of here," Edd said.

Rachelle and Renamon looked around. "Do you see any way out of here, Renamon?"

"We can't see the end of the tunnel. Still, those Digimon signals… Remember, I still can't go to Perfect."

Rachelle nodded. "Makes me wish that Digimon that gave Ed a jumpstart would give _me_ one. I wonder what it would take for me to get you to that level."

"Love of some sort. I can't think of whom you would need to show more of it to. From what I've seen of it, your relationship with your family is healthy. Perhaps it's something else."

"Like?"

"I don't know. In our telepathic conversations, I've noticed something that seems to constantly be gnawing at the back of your mind. It's like you keep on holding on to something you can't have."

"Weird."

Edd fell down from the wall again. "Honestly, Eddward, you're getting nowhere," Kudamon told him from on the ground.

"I have the feeling you may be right."

"It seems our only way out is going to be through the dark."

Edd shivered. Then Renamon suggested something. "Perhaps I can help." She produced a blue fireball with her right paw that illuminated the path in front of them.

"Hey, have you seen Rachelle or Double D?" Robert asked Nazz and Ingrid as he walked up to them.

"I haven't seen them since Double D went down to talk to her," Nazz said.

"Same here," Ingrid confirmed.

"I haven't seen them either," Palmon said.

Then Terriermon suggested something. "Maybe they eloped."

Robert was shocked that Terriermon would make such a suggestion. "Terriermon!"

"What?"

"Dude, didn't they, like, both go downhill a ways or something?" Nazz asked.

"I agree. We should check down there. Perhaps they encountered a Digimon and they're stuck defending themselves against it," Ingrid suggested.

"Alright, I checked earlier but they weren't there. Maybe we should check again," Robert said, pulling out his digivice to try to find their signals.

* * *

Drops of water from the ceiling of the cave could be heard as the duo went down the shaft with their Digimon. The two tamers hardly even talked. Soon after, they found a fork in the road.

"Great, now what?" Rachelle asked.

"The Digimon signals are this way," Renamon said, pointing to the right. "Perhaps it would be wise to go the other way, just in case they're hostile."

"I agree with her," Kudamon said.

Edd nodded. "I agree that it would be best to avoid conflict as much as possible."

Rachelle nodded. For some reason parts of Edd's personality reminded her of Zack. Zack was a bit more easygoing though, constantly coming up with the right wisecrack for the occasion. Edd on the other hand was extremely uptight. Both, however, could make wise decisions based on the available data. They walked down the cave, noticing more and more wooden support beams.

"You don't suppose this was a mine of some sort, do you?" Edd asked.

"Certainly looks like it." Unfortunately, a few steps after that, they reached a part of the mine where it caved in, a complete dead-end. "Great, what do we do now?" Rachelle asked.

Edd started shaking violently at the thought of going down that Digimon infested section. It was only made worse by some noises from the direction of the fork. Rachelle had never seen him like this.

That was something he didn't have in common with Zack who seemed confident with every situation.

Suddenly, the duo was surrounded by numerous yellow and black spider Digimon named Dokugumon, who shot webs at them, wrapping the two tamers in a sticky paste along with their Digimon. Then they dragged them away, eventually hanging them from the ceiling in a different part of the mine, near a series of mine-carts on rails.

What came from the darkness frightened both of them. It was a sort of metal grim reaper who didn't have a lower body: a spine of sorts was attached to a blue ball of energy.

Kudamon recognized the Digimon: "MetalPhantomon."

* * *

Next Chapter: Letting Go

A/N: Didn't quite get everything I wanted to get done with this. Oh, well. Don't worry, Rachelle and Edd won't fall in love or anything.

Funny, there was a scene that I deleted that involved Marie getting Clayton drunk. Unfortunately, it would have probably led to the next two major plot twists getting revealed early. It was an interesting scene with a couple lines of gratuous Russian from Marie of all people. She doesn't actually know any, confusing it for Chinese.

Also, originally, Tactimon wasn't supposed to appear in this chapter, but I figured he needed some build-up. In case your wondering who I think his voice actor should be, I would choose Michael Dorn.


	19. Letting Go

Chapter 19: Letting Go

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon.

A/N: Depressing chapter ahead consisting of death. Oh, and it borrows heavily from Digimon Savers Episode 15, though from the end of the last chapter you probably saw that coming.

* * *

"You're kidding!" Garrett exclaimed in response to what Clayton had told him about his brother's plans. The two of them along with the Kankers and all their partner Digimon except Clayton's were congregated at a table in the imperial mess hall.

"No, I'm not. Derek's planning on making you guys into a new team of Aliases to go to El País Occidental and get Eddy. If that country finds out that you guys are there, they will likely declare war on the empire along with the eastern nations such as the Northern Socialist Republic and the People's Republic of the East. You see, my older brother doesn't care what happens here anymore."

"Like he ever did," Elecmon said. "You've got to face it, kid, your brother's a complete sociopath who doesn't care about anything."

"He's right," Garrett said. "He never cared about Eddy, he never cared about his partner, the digital world, anything, not even you."

"You've got it wrong. He cares about _me_."

Marie looked at Clayton. "Garrett's right you know. If he cared about you then why didn't he let you go home?"

Clayton didn't know how to answer that one. "You don't know him."

"Yes we do!" May exclaimed. "We spent several months with him while he took over this country with that Eric guy."

"Listen, the reason he wants to keep me here is because he wants to protect me from someone or something. I don't know who."

"You sure that he's not lying to you or something, buddy?" Garrett asked. "He _is_ a pathological liar, you know?"

"He's telling the truth, okay? It's apparently what ultimately separated us. When my parents divorced, my mom… our mom got involved with someone who had it out for us, apparently going as far as somehow getting rid of our dad for a few months and poisoning the two of us to the point where I was in the hospital, dying, and my mom had to get on some witness protection program to get away from the creep."

Garrett's eyes lit up. "You got something to add, bub?" Elecmon asked.

"I bet he does," Dorumon added.

"I think I heard about that," Garrett said. "How did you get out alive?"

"I don't know. Wait, you knew about me?"

"No, I just knew that your mom had to leave where she lived before because of someone who tried to kill Eddy and Derek. Apparently, he was sneaking some sort of substance that would have killed them eventually."

"You see, there are some things that my brother says that are true."

"Still, most of what he says is complete bull."

Garrett sat back, taking a sip out of a bottle of root beer that was sitting on the table. Clayton thought about things for a minute before saying something else.

"If you guys go, I'm going with you."

All three of the tamers and their Digimon were shocked when they heard that.

"But, what if Derek finds out?" May asked.

"I'm not afraid of that creep."

"Beware, I saw what he did to Eddy before we went to the digital world," Marie said. "I wouldn't want that to happen to you."

"Yeah, well, I'm sick and tired of waiting for a miracle to happen."

Then they heard a voice from behind them. "Now that's the kind of guy I remember getting partnered to."

Clayton didn't have to look back to know who it was, but he smiled, nonetheless as his partner came towards the table with heavy footsteps.

* * *

MetalPhantomon hovered over Edd and Rachelle. He had been like this for minutes. Then he said something to his henchmen, the Dokugumon. "¡Busquen a otros y llévenlos aquí!"

"You have any idea what he just said?" Rachelle asked.

"Honestly, I haven't a clue," Edd responded, shivering.

"He's having the Dokugumon look for other tamers in the mines," Kudamon translated loosely.

The phantom hovered over them. "Ah, humans. What bring you two here, eh?" MetalPhantomon asked in a relatively thick Spanish accent.

"Honestly, we were just headed back to camp and we accidentally fell into a cave," Edd replied, shaken. "Now will you please let us go?"

"Why I do that?" the enemy Digimon asked. "You see, you humans fetch a big price with the government. I hope to sell you and get a nice reward. That you managed to fall into my trap was a big bonus, jajaja."

Rachelle rolled her eyes. "Here's the thing: we're on a mission to save some friends of ours who were kidnapped by the Digimon Emperor."

"Oh, the human that rule the Metal Empire now?" MetalPhantomon burst into laughter. "He evolves his Digimon to Mega! You not evolve to Perfect or Adult!"

"We can!"

Again, a burst of laughter filled the cave. "I am perfect level. Of course, I feed off of life energy and I go to have to perform my technique now." Suddenly, his goat-head staff glowed with blue energy. "It not matter whether you are dead or alive. I get the same reward." Then streams of blue energy struck the two tamers and they started to fall asleep.

* * *

Edd woke up in an apartment complex. It seemed familiar to him, as if he had been there before. It was approaching sunset and there were a few kids playing outside.

He recognized one of them. It was a six-year-old with black hair who was wearing a red shirt and black shorts. Edd instantly knew who it was, it was him. He wondered how he could have gotten here, eight years into the past and so far away. The kids didn't even notice that he was there.

After waiting for a few minutes of waiting, his younger self walked into one of the apartment buildings and so Edd followed him. He entered the second story apartment behind the kid and looked around. He looked at a calendar on the wall and saw the month: September 2004.

"No way, that was the month I…"

Edd realized he had to do something to stop _it_ from happening. Anything.

* * *

Rachelle walked around. Unlike Edd, she recognized immediately where she was: the neighborhood that she spent her life in until she was nine.

"What am I doing here?"

"Rachelle," she heard Renamon behind her. The vixen had managed to get into her dream by means of their link.

"Renamon!"

"You're hallucinating. This is all a dream world concocted by MetalPhantomon."

Rachelle remembered that. "Yeah, what's going to happen?"

"I'm not sure, but according to Kudamon, MetalPhantomon feeds upon your life energy by inducing nightmares."

"This doesn't seem like much of a nightmare to me." That's when Rachelle caught sight of her younger self walking alongside a chubby boy with brown hair around the same age. That was when she was eight.

"Rachelle, who is that?"

Rachelle said it: "That's me… and a friend."

"From one of the pictures in your room?" Renamon asked.

"Yeah, we were friends from as long as I remembered until…"

"Until, when?" Renamon asked.

"I've gotta stop them!"

"Rachelle! This is a dream!" Renamon yelled, running after her.

* * *

Robert looked around. There was absolutely no sign of the two tamers. "Like I said, maybe they eloped!" Terriermon commented.

Robert ignored him. "Dude! I think I found footprints!" Nazz called out, pointing to a series of footprints in the ground. "But they end here." There was a patch of dirt on the ground that looked a bit too perfect.

"Weird. Any suggestions?" he asked.

"They had to have fallen into some sort of trap," Ingrid said, kneeling down. She pressed down on the piece of dirt and suddenly it opened up, revealing a cave underground.

"It seems she's right," the group looked behind them to see Daniel leaning against a boulder with Pidmon right next to him. "I wouldn't recommend going down there, though, since that has the markings of a Dokugumon trap."

"Yeah? Well, you're not the leader of this team and I say we're going down there!" Robert said.

"I had no idea you were team leader. I thought Eddy was the one running things."

"Actually, Double D's been calling shots since Eddy's been separated from us," Nazz said.

Daniel nodded. "Oh, okay."

"I say we go down there, though. At least most of us can get our Digimon to the Perfect level."

"Of course, I'll need to stay behind," Ingrid commented.

"Dude, I wouldn't want an enemy Digimon to come and take you away, so you're coming with us."

"Alright, whatever you say."

"Seems like you need a partner," Daniel told her as the group headed down the shaft.

"Maybe. Of course, all the Digimon we've been meeting up with lately want to kill us, so I doubt that'll happen soon."

* * *

Edd seemed to wait for hours. Soon, his parents were asleep. Of course, they've always gone to sleep early, but still.

He waited in the kitchen, standing right in front of the drawer were the matches were stored. Then he saw himself in the usual one-piece pajamas that he wore, walking around, looking at stuff. He had been working on a project all day it seemed. It was a volcano, and Edd wanted to make it really blow, so he set things up so that it would by putting tons of flammable material inside the dome. The volcano was on the table, waiting, and Edd's parents had no idea that he had put anything inside. Now it was just a matter of getting the matches to light the fuse.

He walked toward the drawer. "Stop!" Edd's future self yelled, trying to block himself, but to no avail since he walked right through him. He opened the drawer and opened it, pulling out a box of matches. Edd's future self remembered that he had thought that he could just test it here and then again at school, something that he now knew wasn't true. Future Edd kept on trying to block past Edd, but to no avail. Then past Edd lit the match and dropped it down the hole on top.

It exploded in an instant.

Edd remembered upon walking out and seeing the burning apartment building that his parents heard the explosion and drug him out. He had burns all over his head but his parents only had enough money to pay for reconstructive surgery on his face. He ended up in the hospital for many months so that he had to repeat the first grade. It was the most traumatic experience for him.

He sat there, crying as he saw the paramedics arrive and put his younger self on a stretcher. The psychological ramifications of the experience had left him rigid in his ideals so that in the coming years he had few friends. His parents were the same way, keeping tabs on him so that he wouldn't dare do anything they didn't want him to. It was all they could do to prevent the same thing from happening again.

No wonder he didn't have the courage to face the enemies they fought. He cared too much about what others think, about what his parents think.

Except for that time he didn't care about what his friend thought…

**"Hey! Where're you going!" Eddy yelled, while chasing after Edd. They were on the road and Edd had just left the swamp. "Go head back into the swamp! My bro don't live-!" Eddy was interrupted as he was about to grab onto Edd's arm.**

** "Don't you dare touch me!" Edd yelled, getting into Eddy's face. Then using numerous hand gestures to make himself more clear he rambled on. "A sap? Well excuse my sincerity for thinking I had lost the only two people I have left in this world!"**

** Eddy was obviously unfazed by Edd's outburst. "And?"**

** "It's surprising because you're stubborn and inane desire to shock, sandbag and swindle is what brought us here the first place!"**

** "I helped too!" Ed called out.**

** Edd glared at the big Ed, who just looked at him in surprise. Then he went back to chewing out Eddy. "You and your nefarious scams!"**

** "What? You weren't picking daisies! You built the stupid thing!"**

** "If you would have paid attention to what I said and not push the red button!" That started the fight between the two.**

** "Stop!" Ed commanded. "I demand you two to tickle each other right now!"**

** "Stay out of it Ed!" the two other Eds yelled at him.**

** "The evil dark side has disturbed them both! Trouble! Bad!"**

** Then Edd kicked Eddy off of himself. "I've had enough!" he yelled, then getting up he said, "I'm returning home!"**

** "But we can't go home, Double D!"**

** "I'd rather face my consequences, Ed, than wander aimlessly with our so-called friend." Then he walked off.**

Edd remembered how that ended up prompting the beginnings of a change in the shorter Ed, so that he begged him back and they resumed their search for the one person they believed could help them.

* * *

Rachelle finally caught up with the two kids, trying desperately to block them to no avail. They were approaching the corner, _that_ corner. Rachelle knew there was a truck coming and that the driver wasn't watching, so she ran ahead of the pair, running into the street that it was coming down, holding her arms out desperately so that it would stop.

It didn't and it just ran through her. Just as the boy stepped onto the street, he saw it coming and pushed Rachelle's younger self out of the way as quickly as he could, before getting hit.

Rachelle just looked back at her younger self. She was standing there and couldn't do anything.

"Rachelle!" Renamon called out, running around the corner. The fox saw exactly what happened.

* * *

Back in the real digital world, Kudamon was watching the two tamers. Suddenly, though, Rachelle started shaking and crying. She was starting to glow and the crest that was hanging around her neck started to glow a little bit. Edd was just shaking.

"Hang in there!" Kudamon called out.

* * *

"Nothing you say will change their fate."

Rachelle looked at Renamon. "I loved the poor boy, you know…" she said. "I was only eight years old at the time, but I still loved him. He was the only one I hung out with."

"Rachelle…" Rachelle's younger self was crouched down crying as some paramedics came. "It wasn't your fault!"

"You know, looking back…" Rachelle sobbed. "I never let go. I never really moved on with my life. The girls at school blamed me for what happened. I ended up having to move away soon after. Eventually I wound up in Colorado and…"

**It was the first day of sixth grade in gym class. She was introducing herself to new people. Since it was the first day, they didn't have to wear gym uniforms yet, though they did have to wear green school uniforms. She looked around and a boy from the other side of the gym caught her eye. He was busy chatting with a group of other kids, including a guy with brown hair and black-rimmed glasses and a burly guy with brown hair.**

** "Is that…?" she asked herself. She didn't know who he was, but she couldn't stop looking over that direction.**

** "Oh, you caught sight of a cute guy, huh?" a girl with long blonde hair asked, breaking her out of her reverie and causing her to look behind. "If you want, I can set you up at lunch."**

** "Sorry, Christine. I'm fine."**

** "Who was it that you were looking at? Was it Trent?" Christine thought about it a little more for a second. "Maybe you like Robert if you're into muscular guys. I think that's what his name is."**

** "I don't know any of their names, actually and how could I like them if I don't even know that?"**

** Christine's eyes narrowed. "Oh, please. Girls our age are starting to enter puberty with raging hormones and whatnot. We need to vent them somehow."**

** Rachelle chuckled a little bit. She could never understand getting boy crazy at her age though she did prefer the company of boys instead of girls.**

** "You're in the seventh grade, right?"**

** "Yeah."**

** "I'm only in sixth. Do you have your yearbook on you?"**

** "Sure," the blonde girl kept looking over at the boys' side. "Maybe you'd like to go out with Daniel. He's this hot looking blond guy."**

** "Can I borrow your yearbook, please?"**

** "Oh, you bet," Christine opened up her backpack which was on a nearby bleacher and pulled out a thin green book. Then she opened it. "Here you go: opened to the page that Daniel's on." The girl pointed him out. "Right here."**

** "Thanks but no thanks." Rachelle opened to the beginning of the seventh grade section to skim through the portraits.**

** "Oh, look, you're probably into guys like Zack, right. He's **_**so**_** ugly!"**

** "Found him."**

** "Huh?"**

** "Clayton."**

** "Clayton?" Christine exclaimed before getting the yearbook back. Rachelle started walking across the gym. "Who the heck is Clayton?"**

** Rachelle made it to the other side of the gym. "Hi, my name is Rachelle and I'm new here," she introduced herself.**

** Clayton was shocked that a cute girl would even bat an eye at him and his friends.**

** "Well, that guy's Trent," Clayton said, pointing at the guy with the glasses, "This guy's Robert," and then he introduced himself, but with a nickname.**

** That began a friendship that lasted for quite a while. Unfortunately, they began developing feelings for each other and he had to break it off since he knew his dad wouldn't approve. Neither would hers.**

"That's the thing. I never let go. I should have. Maybe if I did then…"

"Rachelle, the past is the past. What we have now, that's what matters, not that. You need to activate your crest of love."

"What if… sometimes love means letting go?"

"Huh?"

"That's it…" that was when Rachelle's crest shined in all its glory.

* * *

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

"Renamon Super Evolve!" the vixen yelled, evolving into a white Kyubimon. Then the fox felt a wave go through her from the front to the back and jumped to the air, spinning around into light. A white fox face came out of that light, and she wore priestly garb and spun around as a white moon eclipse a red sun in the background.

"Taomon!"

Kudamon was amazed at the sight. Taomon normally came in yellow, data-type versions; however there was, in rare instances, a white version that had the Vaccine attribute. This one, like the somewhat unusual child form, had the crest of love on her instead of the Taoist Taijitu symbols. Taomon's first order of business was bringing out her brush and creating a symbol with it to cut off the link between the Tamers and MetalPhantomon and at the same time free them from the webbing. "Sanscrit Pen Slash!" she yelled as the symbol hit the staff.

"¡Imposible! ¡Eso no debería ocurrir!"

"You should know better than to mess with peoples' memories, MetalPhantomon!" Rachelle yelled out, finally getting out of the webbing that had her trapped. "It's because of that boy I loved that I couldn't activate the Crest of Love, but no more! Get him, Taomon!"

Meanwhile, the others were coming down the corridor, with adult-level Digimon, crushing the numerous giant spiders that happened the cross their paths. "Man, won't these guys just quit?" Galgomon asked, pummeling the Dokugumon.

"Eddward," Kudamon requested.

"Here you go, Kudamon!" he yelled, causing his digivice to shine.

"Kudamon evolve! Reppamon!"

The white fox charged forward, destroying a few Dokugumon with its tail.

"Now it's you and me, MetalPhantomon!" Taomon yelled.

"No debe acabar así. ¡Voy a ganar esta batalla!"

"Hey, Double D? Have any idea what the grim reaper's saying?" Rachelle asked.

"To be honest, I haven't a clue."  
"He says he's gonna win," Daniel translated. "Doesn't look like it, though."

"How do _you_ know Spanish?" Edd asked out of surprise.

"I went to a dual-immersion academy for elementary school. That was how I met Zack, actually."

Up in the air, Taomon stretches out her arms, yelling: "Fox Sealing Paper!" causing thousands of red papers to come out and bind up MetalPhantomon. After that, they exploded, causing the enemy Digimon to disintegrate and reform into an egg, which, as is usual in the digital world, flew off. Soon after, they had defeated all the Dokugumon and they were at peace.

* * *

"You made it, Rachelle!" Edd said, congratulating her.

The girl chuckled. "Thank you." She was walking while holding Viximon. After defeating the enemy Digimon, they used the mine carts to cut down on travel time and eventually got out of the mine. Upon getting out, they were surprisingly close to their destination, as the other three tamers were nearby.

"So, I burned the house down in my nightmare. You?"

"You're so casual about it. Mine was a lot more traumatic."

"Involving someone you love?"

"Yeah? Or at least an old friend."

"There they are!" Robert yelled out, pointing to a distant platform where Eddy, Chaun and Ed were. There was a blimp on the edge of it. Edd opened up his digivice to see what it was.

"Blimpmon, Adult Level, Data Type." Somehow, Edd was reminded about Zack's picture as they walked toward the blimp. There were more tamers on the edge of the platform as well, though Edd couldn't see them quite yet. "You know, Rachelle, you still haven't showed me the picture of Zack."

"Oh, let me go get it." She reached around and then stopped. "Wait a second. There he is!" Rachelle said, pointing at the platform, smiling.

Finally, they were reunited.

* * *

Next Chapter: Tamers for Hire

A/N: Well, that was the one team's part of the story. Next chapter will involve Eddy, Ed and Chaun. Then the chapter after that will go to the real world briefly, showing what Rolf is up to, and then I'll show Zack's team heading to El País Occidental to meet the others.

Oh, and I'm open to suggestions about Ingrid's partner. If you feel like telling me what it should be, just put it in a review.


	20. Tamers for Hire

Chapter 20: Tamers for Hire

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own…

* * *

It had only been a day since they split from the others. Eddy, Ed and Chaun were enjoying the sights but were running out of funds quickly, not that that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't split off in the first place, but at least while travelling they would have had ways of finding food and they could just camp out. However, since they were in the middle of a city, Eddy didn't want to be seen as a 'homeless hobo' and felt they needed to stay at the inn and eat out.

Needless to say, Chaun was not impressed.

"Seriously, man, we're not going to survive past tomorrow the way things are going. We need to save our funds. Okay?" Chaun said. They were walking through the city toward an ancient monument.

"Oh, come on. We're living the high life here!" Eddy said. "Heck, Ed's not complaining."

"We are running out of money quick, Eddy" Ed said.

"Yeah, maybe we can find a way to make some. Hmmm. Hey, Chaun, how did you guys make the bucks while you were in the digital world?"

"Whenever we defeated an enemy Digimon, we got money automatically sent to the storage compartments in our digivices."

Eddy opened up his digivice and messed around with it. There was hardly any money from defeating enemy Digimon in the real world in it and there was only a little bit from the enemies they had to deal with in the digital world.

Actually there was a little from defeating Groundramon, enough for at least another night. It seemed Armor Digimon only gave a little money while Adult Digimon gave a little more. Perfects like Groundramon gave double that of Adults. Eddy wondered who set up the digivices with such a system.

Then again, who set them up in the first place?

Eddy pulled out the black and green digivice just as they reached the monument. "Huh?" was Eddy's reaction as he realized that the digivice was on. "Hey, Chaun, check this out!"

"What is it?" That's when he saw the digivice. "Wait, you've got another digivice?"

"Yeah. Found it in the back of my brother's car. It wasn't working then but it is now." Suddenly a green light shone from the middle of the monument: a statue of a large, winged dragon with a massive lance. There were four other statues surrounding it as well. "Oh, man, what the heck is that thing?"

"I have no idea. I haven't seen this Digimon before," Chaun replied.

Sealsdramon knew, though. "That… is one of the Royal Knights: Examon."

"What about these other Digimon?" Eddy asked. "That one," Eddy pointed to one with a red base, "looks kind of like WarGreymon with a sword."  
"It's not."

"That's VictoryGreymon," Chaun affirmed. "He's one of at least three possible good Megas for the Agumon line. This one in particular came from GeoGreymon."

"What if my brother could get his Digimon to that if…"

"Yeah, right. Your brother's partner evolved to plain WarGreymon and then to Omegamon as a jogress with MetalGarurumon."

"Yeah, like in the movie?"

"Exactly. Back in the day, though, Eric and Derek got their Digimon to that form in their final fight against Chaosdramon."

"So, what does Examon have to do with him?"

"Beats me. Lets see, the other Digimon here are UlforceVeedramon and Ophanimon. I don't get how they're all connected to him, though… hmmm…" Chaun thought about things for a second. "UlforceVeedramon is Veedramon's Mega and he's Zack's partner."

"Wait a second! I though ExVeemon was his partner!" Eddy objected.

"ExVeemon is a subspecies of Veedramon," Sealsdramon said.

Eddy raised an eyebrow at his Digimon. "Okay, when did you become a walking encyclopedia?"

"Memories of my past life seem to be coming back at a steady pace."

"Wait, past life? I found you as an egg on some virtual pet."

"You know, I don't remember Commandramon being an obtainable Digimon on any of the pets, at least not in one of them in the US," Chaun said. "There's something fishy going on here. Oh, and Ophanimon is one of two possible Megas for Tailmon."

"The good version of Lee's partner? Man, this is messed up," Eddy said.

"She's Jessica's partner. So far, that's the only connection between these guys, how two of them are siblings. As far as I can remember, Zack's only sibling was Jessica."

"Maybe Zack has more siblings like Eddy," Ed suggested.

Chaun looked at Eddy. "Wait, you got something you're not telling us?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Dude! This could be important! What if your siblings are enemy Tamers?"

"I'm afraid of that too," Eddy said.

"What are their names?" Chaun asked.

"Clayton. He's the only one I know of, I swear. He's like my twin brother or something."

_Now here I was thinking he looked kind of like… wait a minute._ "That's the only one?" Chaun's eyes narrowed.

"Yeah. At least I hope. So what's this other Digimon?" Eddy asked, pointing to a gun-carrying, mech-suit wearing statue. For some reason it reminded Eddy of Starcraft or Warhammer, except for the reptilian head.

"Beats me," Chaun responded. "Funny, I don't know two of these Digimon." The base was gold with some writing on the bottom. "Sealsdramon?"

"It's an unidentified Digimon. Some theories have it belonging to a number of Digimon lines, mainly reptilian Digimon or cyborgs. The text at the bottom is digitized Latin for 'Out of the darkness, a defender will rise,' but other than that, there's nothing on him."

"An unknown species…" Wormmon said.

Eddy looked at the bases to the other statues: UlforceVeedramon's was silver and Ophanimon's was purple. He thought there was something weird about that.

"Excuse me, but are you Tamers?" someone asked from behind them. They looked to see a short, bearded old man. Eddy looked at his digivice to identify him:

**Jijimon**

** Level: Mega**

** Attribute: Vaccine**

"Yeah? What do you want?" Eddy asked.

"You see, there's a neighboring village that needs help dealing with a Geremon infestation, and I've been looking around for help all over. Would you be willing to help? There will be a reward."

Eddy's eyes bugged at that one. "Reward?"

"Yes."

"Count us in!"

"Dude, Eddy, think about it for a second," Chaun said. "This guy's a Mega. If he can't defeat a bunch of Adult-level slugs, what makes you think we can?"

"Unfortunately, level has absolutely nothing to do with it," Jijimon said. "I don't have the time to deal with them since I'm on the city counsel and all. Besides, I heard that there were Tamers in town and this town has a long history with Tamers, going all the way back to the first one."

"The first Tamer?" Chaun asked.

"Cool. Who was he?" Ed asked.

"His original name was lost to history. However, he has a connection to all four of the Digimon surrounding Examon, here, since Examon is the final form of his Digimon, although he never got to that level. He was said to bear the Crest of Kindness and according to the legend, he was looking for a way back home. His story came to a tragic end, however, while he defended this very town from the forces of the Dark Ocean. Because of this, Yggdrasil had this monument built. At first there were only three statues, but eventually a fourth one came from the sky for unknown reasons."

"Whoa," Chaun said in awe.

"Hey, so I have the crest of kindness. How did I get it if he was destroyed by the Dark Ocean?"

"I'm not sure…"

"That's really weird, man…" Chaun commented.

"Can't we just go on that mission and, I don't know, kill some Geremon or whatever," Eddy said out of embarassment, walking off, that is until he realized he forgot something important. "Hey, so where is this town, anyway?"

"It's a small village named Casa Foeda to the west of town."

"I should be able to help you get there," Sealsdramon told him. "I have an internal mapping system in my head."

"Cool," Ed said.

"You know, ever since Ed got his mind zapped by Wisemon, I've been expecting him to at least change a bit, but he hasn't," Hawkmon said.

"I too changed."

The bird glared at him.

"Can't we just get on with this?" Eddy asked.

* * *

"So, this is the place, huh?" Chaun asked. "It looks like a junkyard to me." In fact, Casa Foeda was a junkyard, with various Digimon living inside small refrigerators, vending machines, trash compactors and so on. The streets were also littered with trash and cardboard houses, some of which were multiple cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other.

"This reminds me of that time we made a city in the middle of the lane," Ed said.

"When was that?" Hawkmon asked.

"About two years ago. Eddy thought up this scam involving stacking tons of cardboard boxes on top of each other and then pretending it was a city. Everyone played along, even Kevin."

"And it would have worked too if it weren't for Jonny and Plank ruining everything," Eddy complained.

"Remember the time we pretended we were pigeons and we tried dropping yogurt on Nazz."

"Your kidding right?" Chaun asked.

"Nope," Eddy replied.

"Oh, man, that's hilarious!" That's when Chaun saw a vending machine. He knocked on it to see whether anything was living in it but got no answer. Looking inside, he saw a bunch of card packs. "Hey, you don't mind if I get a few packs of cards, do you?"

"Sure, go ahead. Let me know if there's anything good." Eddy looked around and didn't see any movement whatsoever and all he heard was the wind blowing through the 'city'. "Man, somehow I think everyone just up and left."

Chaun finished paying for the cards and pulled them out. "If I remember right, these are cards translated from the series that has Spirit Evolution cards in it. Zack used to collect these all the time."

"Did he ever use them?"

"A couple of times. When we were given access to the portal to the real world and BlackWarGreymon was on our tail, he had gotten enough to make himself into a KaiserGreymon."

"Wait, he used the cards to turn himself into Digimon? That's messed up."

"Oh, yeah, but that was what spirit evolution was. You still haven't seen Frontier, have you?"

"Nope."

At that point, Chaun had already opened up the packs. Unfortunately, instead of finding the Spirit cards that he was hoping for, he just found a bunch of cards that looked like white versions of blue cards. "What the heck, man? This is just jacked up."

"What do those cards do?" Eddy asked.

"Let me see. Wormmon, do you mind if I scan this?"

"No, I'm curious myself."

"Alright. Card Slash!" When Chaun slashed the card, nothing happened. "Serious, why did whoever made the cards in the digital world make something so useless?"

"Maybe the Emperor decided the cards would be too dangerous," Wormmon suggested.

"I guess. Great, all those packs for nothing." He looked at the cards, one by one. One in particular caught his eye. It looked like some sort of dead black and purple bird. He realized what it was instantly and the thought of it gave him shivers.

"Okay, Eddy, there's nothing here. I think we should go back!" Ed exclaimed.

"No way, man. We've gotta find these Geremon or whatever. Hey, Sealsdramon, are your sensors picking up anything?"

"Negative."

Chaun felt another shiver go up his spine, and then he looked behind to see something move in the shadows. "Um, guys…"

"You know, I think this Jijimon fellow was lying to us," Hawkmon said.

"Now my sensors are picking up something," Sealsdramon changed his last statement.

Suddenly, a black teddy bear came up out of nowhere, landing right in front of Sealsdramon, hitting him and knocking him out. "Sealsdramon!" Eddy yelled.

Chaun recognized the Digimon. "WaruMonzaemon."

"Hello kids, welcome to my town."

"Wait, you own this town?" Eddy asked, standing over the knocked out Sealsdramon.

"Oh, yeah. Now that I've taken it over with my army. Come out!"

A group of Geremon surrounded them. They were yellow slug-like creatures with eyes that went up from their bodies. There was a large group of them and they reminded Eddy of Numemon.

Ed counted the Geremon. Of course, they were extremely weak Adult level's with power less than that of a Child level's, so taking a whole bunch of them out wouldn't be too difficult.

"Hey, Eddy, there are 30 Geremon and they're like Numemon, really weak but dirty."

Eddy nodded. Now if only Sealsdramon would wake up. "Alright, Ed, it looks like we're going to have to fight along side our Digimon. Got it?"

Ed nodded and so did Chaun. "Ready, Hawkmon?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Wanna beat the crap out of these guys, Wormmon?" Chaun asked.

"As if we have any choice."

"Alright!"

Suddenly, light came from their digivices and engulfed Hawkmon and Wormmon. "Hawkmon Evolve! Aquilamon!"

"Wormmon Evolve! Stingmon!"

"Hehe, two Digimon with both a level and type disadvantage. Man, you humans crack me up," Warumonzaemon taunted.

Aquilamon flew from the sky towards the Geremon, yelling "Penetrator!" He rammed a group of Numemon with his horns, deleting eight of them.

"Spiking Finish!" Stingmon yelled, extending a blade from his arm and impaling a series of nine more Geremon.

That's when the kids started punching and kicking the enemy Digimon. Chaun even grabbed a stick and started beating on a pair of Geremon with it, using moves that he stole from shows such as Rurouni Kenshin. Together, the kids deleted four of them.

"Okay, guys, there's only nine left," Ed shouted, "And then their boss."

"Man, how could you count that fast?" Eddy inquired, receiving a shrug in reply.

Then WaruMonzaemon started to chuckle.

Eddy looked at him with disdain. "What's so funny, PedoBear?"

Eddy's question caused WaruMonzaemon to burst out laughing. "You're nowhere near close to being done with these guys!" He flicked his little fingers and another group of Geremon showed up, this one larger than before.

"There are 40 in this group," Ed told Eddy. "That means there are 49 total."

"Oh, great, now what? Hey, do either of you have anything that can heal Sealsdramon?"

"Here you go," Ed said, handing Eddy a card.

"Gee, thanks." Eddy looked at the card and realized something was amiss. "Ed! This is a Pokémon card!"

"It'll heal him, right?"

"Maybe." Eddy slashed the card. "Card Slash! Max Revive!"

Surprisingly enough, it worked, and Sealsdramon was awake and started growling as soon as he saw what was happening. He jumped forward, cutting a bloody swath though the Geremon to get to WaruMonzaemon. "Take that!" he yelled, holding a knife to try to stab the evil teddy bear, who dodged it by going backward, charged a ball of electricity with its right hand, and proceeded to fire it at Sealsdramon, who was pushed backwards, his cybernetic parts starting to short-circuit.

"Great, it looks like one of us is going to have to go to Perfect to take these guys down," Eddy said.

"I realize that, Eddy," Chaun told him. He pulled out a card, held it up, and closed his eyes in an attempt to try to bring about a blue card. He opened his eyes to see that it was still a regular evolution card.

"Chaun, increase Stingmon's strength," Eddy suggested. "Ed, increase Aquilamon's speed!"

"Okay, Eddy!" Ed yelled as he pulled out a card and slashed it, upping his Digimon's speed just as it was pelted with ice cream-shaped poop. "Aquilamon!"

_Great, they need my help. Why can't I activate this card?_

"Chaun!" Eddy called out. Sealsdramon started getting up groggily, the nanoprobes in his body having repaired most of his internal damage.

Suddenly, Stingmon got pelted with a series of turds too. "Stingmon!" Chaun called out.

* * *

**He remembered that day clearly. He had just gotten swept into the digital world through the Gourd's gate and he was running for his life from a red ogre Digimon, Fugamon, through a jungle. He knew about Digimon at that point from talking to his brother about his experiences in the digital world, but he had no idea that he would be dealing with them himself. Upon entering into the world, he had gotten separated from his friend Garrett as well as his enemy Jonny.**

**Strangely enough, Plank was still in the real world.**

**Suddenly, just as he was caught between a cliff and his pursuer, the pursuer got attacked by a large green insect Digimon. Chaun knew who this Digimon was, since it was his favorite from the second season of the show. "Stingmon!" The Stingmon stabbed Fugamon clear through, causing the ogre to disintegrate into particles of data which Stingmon absorbed. Stingmon looked at Chaun.**

**"Hmm… I don't sense much power coming from you. You're data's probably not worth it."**

**"Huh?" Chaun stood there with his mouth open as Stingmon began to walk away. "Hey, wait!"**

**Stingmon looked over his shoulder at Chaun. "What is it?"**

**"I'm human, not a Digimon. I just got stuck here in this world. Can you help me?"**

**Stingmon looked at him. If he were human, Chaun would have seen a look of confusion on his face. "How could I do that?"**

**"Well, I don't want to be attacked by anymore random Digimon."**

**"Can't help you with that. In this part of the digital world, it's kill or be killed."**

**"Does it have to be that way?" Chaun asked.**

**"No. Other places such as the Server continent have empires that keep the peace. Of course, I hear that empire itself has been taken over by a human. How he managed to defeat Mugendramon is beyond me."**

**"Another human? What do you know about this guy?"**

**"He calls himself several names, such as the Great Revolutionary, El Hombre, and The Digimon Emperor. I've only recently heard of him."**

**"Can you take me to this guy?"**

**Stingmon turned and walked away. "Are you nuts. The imperial borders are closed."**

**Chaun continued following him. At the very least he would have someone to help him in case he got in a bind.**

* * *

**Stingmon settled down in a cave for the night. "So, what brings you here to the digital world, human?" he asked, sitting down in front of a fire that he had lit.**

**"Well, I got sent through a portal built by this guy from my town, Jonny. He went totally psycho and tried to take over the street he lived on but he failed so he built this portal to here. My friend Garrett and I just happened to chance upon it and the three of us got sucked into this world. Soon after coming here, though, we got separated. Well, Jonny left of his own free will, but Garrett and I got chased by a couple of Digimon that wanted to eat us or whatever."**

**"I see." Stingmon paused for a second. "I'm sorry I'm of no help for you there. I didn't even know this real world existed until I heard about the human who rules the Metal Empire now."**

**"So, are there any towns nearby?" Chaun asked.**

**"I'm headed to one, actually. I'm hoping to get there tomorrow."**

* * *

**The next day, they reached the town to find that it was a smoldering mass. "This happened recently, in the last couple of days," Stingmon remarked.**

**"Yeah. Who would do such a thing?"**

**"From the looks of it, a high-level Digimon was here. Possibly Mega."**

**Suddenly, out of the blue, a Digimon attacked Stingmon. The Digimon had purple skin and reminded Chaun of Cyberdramon, except without nearly as much armor. It must have been Cyberdramon's Adult form or something.**

**"Finally I found you! Go get him partner!" Chaun knew who it was immediately. He looked behind to see a black kid with a giant gourd helmet on his head and a towel for a cape.**

**"Jonny! Man, didn't you figure it out yet? We're trapped in another world!"**  
**"Yeah, so. I figured I'd extract my revenge on you by killing your insect friend!"**

**Chaun rolled his eyes. "Revenge for what?"**

**"For beating me up at Mondo-a-go-go!"**

**"I didn't beat you up."**  
**"You allowed it!"**

**"I wasn't even there! If I was there, then I would have probably prevented the others from beating you up, but I wasn't. Dude, I was probably recovering from a broken leg at the time."**

**Jonny was being his usual unreasoning Gourd self. "So? You still hang out with that imbecile, Kevin, and those annoying Eds! Finish him off, Strikedramon!"**

**"Jonny, I want you to reconsider this," Strikedramon said in his husky voice. "This Stingmon's not even a virus."**

**"I don't care!"**

**"Jonny, don't do this. Stingmon and I just happened to cross paths, man. Heck, we're not even partners."**

**Jonny got that crazed look in his eyes yet again. "Okay, Strikedramon, time to go to the next level!" Jonny held out a purple and blue digivice.**

**Strikedramon and Stingmon just looked at Jonny. "Um, Jonny, you need your crest for that," Strikedramon said.**

**That's when Jonny received a sock in the face. He looked back up to see Chaun standing there, rubbing his fist. "Honestly, man, we can get out of this together, or we can…"**

**"Shut up! Digivolve now, Strikedramon!"**

**Suddenly, Jonny's digivice started to shine black light and Strikedramon was engulfed with it. "Strikedramon evolve!" Strikedramon turned into a deadly looking Digimon with four red, hole-filled wings, translucent purple bubbles on its armor and a twin lance with blades on each side. It also had a large tail with a triangular end-piece.**

**"RuinCyberdramon!"

* * *

**

A/N: RuinCyberdramon is actually Cyberdramon's redesign for XrosWars. I was looking for a dark evolution for Strikedramon and that caught my eye. Yeah, I wish they kept the old design. It's cool for what it is.

And, before consulting your Spanish dictionaries, Casa Foeda is actually Latin for Ugly House. A pun on Casa Blanca.


	21. The Bearer of Friendship

Chapter 21: The Bearer of Friendship

Disclaimer: Don't own…

* * *

_**This is bad, man,**_** Chaun thought, looking at the new form of Jonny's partner Digimon as it moved toward Stingmon. "Stingmon! Attack quickly!" he yelled as RuinCyberdramon stuck his lance into the ground and used it to lift himself up and kick Stingmon against a tree.**

** "Stingmon!" Chaun yelled.**

** "How does it feel to get everything taken away from you? Now we're trapped in another world, your 'partner' is on the verge of deletion, and you're about to be beaten up by me!"**

** Chaun looked at Jonny. That's when it hit him: "You don't have Plank!"**

** "No! You see, that's the problem, Timber is still back in Peach Creek! Just like I'm separated from my best friend, you're now separated from yours."**

** "Yeah, but you didn't do that, just like I didn't beat you up!"**

** Jonny looked at him with a puzzled face and yelled, "But you allowed it!"**

** "No. I. Didn't!" **

** RuinCyberdramon charged toward Stingmon, his spear poised for a finishing blow when another Digimon plowed into him.**

** "What! No!" The other Digimon was a Leomon. Chaun looked around and saw Garrett.**

** "Figures that I'd have to save your hide," Garrett said in his usual raspy voice.**

** "That guy's now a perfect level, you know?" Chaun said.**

** Garrett nodded. "I'll be able to handle him longer than you can. Take Stingmon and get on out of here. I'll try to reason with Jonny."**

** Chaun was shocked that his friend would tell him to do something like that. "But…"**

**"Just go that direction," Garrett told him, pointing, "You know me, I can handle this guy on my own. Besides, if Dark Digivolving is anything like it is on the TV show, this Digimon's going to devolve in a matter of minutes."**

** Chaun nodded. "I hope you're right, man."**

** "When am I not?" Garrett asked sarcastically as Chaun ran in the other direction.

* * *

**

** It was a while later when Stingmon devolved back to Wormmon due to the heavy damage he sustained. Chaun kept moving forward with his Digimon in his arms, wondering why Garrett had him go this way.**

** Just after dark, he found a meadow with several kids and their Digimon. They were around a campfire. Chaun noticed one of them, a boy that he couldn't make out other than the goggles on his head who was gesturing like crazy, probably elaborating some story or something.**

** "Maybe this is what your friend wanted you to find," Wormmon suggested.**

** "Yeah, probably." Chaun said. "Let's see who these guys are." Suddenly, Chaun felt something in his pocket. He reached in and pulled out a shining digivice.**

** The other kids had stopped talking about whatever it was they were talking about and the leader, the guy with the hand gestures, got up.**

** "Who's that guy?" a girl asked, her cat-like Digimon's form next to her. The leader just shrugged and walked over to Chaun. The darkness didn't help Chaun see him.**

** "My name's Zack." He was slightly shorter than Chaun was. "You must be that other chosen we were looking for."**

_**Chosen?**_** Chaun thought, slightly confused as he held out his hand. "I guess man. My name's Chaun and this is my partner Digimon, Wormmon."**

** "Pleased to meet you," Wormmon said.**

** "Hehehe, awesome! My name's Zack by the way. I'm sure you're excited to be here like I am. My partner over there is Veedramon." ****Zack shook Chaun's hand like crazy. ****"¡Bienvenidos al Mundo Digital!"**

** Again, Zack seemed familiar, and the familiarity only grew when he actually saw him in the light of the campfire. "So, where are you from?" Zack asked as he sat down.**

** "A place called Peach Creek."

* * *

**

_What if Jonny was the chosen that Zack sought? What if I stopped him from meeting the guy? If that was the case, then, man, I really screwed up big time. All he wanted was friendship and he couldn't get any. That's why after getting beat up; he was pushed over the edge._

Then Chaun remembered the time he found Plank in the junkyard just before going to the digital world. He remembered how he thought about how Jonny couldn't have been faring well without Plank, who they figured must have been living somehow, so he picked him up, not just to find the gate, but to give to Jonny as well.

The feeling of the 2x4 strapped to his back made him itch slightly.

"I'm sorry, Jonny. Maybe when we meet again, we can be friends."

Chaun held out the card as it suddenly changed into a shade of blue. "Card Slash! Matrix Evolution!"

**MATRIX EVOLUTION_**

"Stingmon, Evolve!" Stingmon's armor changed so that it was sleeker and a lighter shade of green, with patches of red and yellow here and there. He also had longer, white hair and a staff with a red, star-like blade at the end.

"JewelBeemon!"

Eddy eyed Chaun's Digimon. "What the… You made it!"

Chaun winked at Eddy. "You bet I did. It was bound to happen sooner or later." _Now to get Plank back to Jonny. _

JewelBeemon went straight for the enemy Digimon that surrounded them, readying its lance and gracefully slicing up as many as it could before reaching WaruMonzaemon, who was ready when he reached him.

"Oh, please, you girly bug! Take this! Nasty Step!" WaruMonzaemon performed a bizarre dance and then, just as JewelBeemon reached him, unleashed a dark energy blast from his chest, nearly hitting JewelBeemon who got out of the way at the last second by moving to the left.

Then WaruMonzaemon heard a voice from behind him. "Death Behind!" It turns out that Sealsdramon stabbed him from behind, causing him to writhe in pain. "Now, JewelBeemon! Get him!"

"Alright!" JewelBeemon said, striking WaruMonzaemon with his staff. "Spike Buster!" Now there was a massive gash across WaruMonzaemon's cotton chest and large amounts of data was leaking out. Then he disintegrated and reformed into an egg that flew off.

Seeing their leader gone, the army of Geremon fled.

"Wow, I'm glad that's over," Eddy said as the three Digimon devolved, JewelBeemon to Wormmon, Sealsdramon back to Commandramon, and Aquilamon to Hawkmon. Sealsdramon's devolution surprised Eddy. "Wait a second, how come you didn't devolve before?"

"I think I sustained too much damage from that battle to maintain my adult form," he said, walking up to his partner.

"Um, okay… Then why did JewelBeemon just devolve back to Wormmon and not whatever its baby form is?"

"I guess blue cards just work differently," Chaun commented, taking in a deep breath and picking up Wormmon. Soon, various Digimon came out of hiding in the village.

One of them, a pink mouse-like Chuumon, walked up to Chaun. "On behalf of the entire village, thank you."

"You're welcome," Wormmon said.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Chaun said, smiling.

"If you would like, you can come and eat some lunch here," A PlatinumSukamon offered. Just the fact that the one offering was shaped like a silver turd made the group's stomachs churn with the exception of Ed.

"Okay, I'm in!" Ed cheered.

"I guess we can't refuse," Eddy said, warily.

"Right," Commandramon agreed, shuddering at the thought of food with the locals.

* * *

Later on, it was getting dark and the kids were at the hotel room. "Okay, truth or dare!" Chaun said.

"Truth," Eddy replied.

"Does anybody else know about Clayton?" Chaun asked, taking Eddy aback.

"Um, no. Just Ed and I."

"And me," Commandramon said. "Oh, don't forget Rolf and Kevin and their Digimon where there when Daniel told us all about him."

Chaun's eyes lit up. "Wait, Daniel told you?"

"And my brother. Danny was in panic mode when he saw me for the first time and blurted it out. I figured it out before, though. Wait a minute. Did you have us play this game just so you could ask that?"

"Nah, I just thought we could get to know each other a bit more, that's all."

"So, how many siblings do you have, Chaun," Ed asked.

"I'm the middle of five and I have an older brother and an older sister."

"Ed's just got a sister, I've got two brothers," Eddy said.

"How'd you figure out that you had another brother, Eddy?" Chaun asked.

"Found a picture." Eddy didn't bother to mention that it was on Zack's iPod.

"Hmm… crazy. I guess you get to spin the bottle now." Eddy did so and it landed on Commandramon.

"What's your Mega form," Eddy asked. "Is it cool?"

Commandramon glared at him. "Darkdramon. I was him at one point. I remember the first time I became him. I had destroyed an entire village for Mugendramon as a Tankdramon using my Striver Cannon and loaded the Digimon that lived there. Mugendramon upgraded me as a promotion."

Eddy was kind of disturbed by the notion. So were Chaun and each of the other Digimon.

Ed on the other hand simply remarked, "Cool."

"Edwin! How can you possibly think that was cool?" Hawkmon asked.

Commandramon was actually kind of embarrassed. He didn't like his past and the effects the surfaced memories were starting to have on him. In fact, the next thing anyone knew, he got up and ran out the door. "Commandramon!" Eddy called out, about to get up.

"Eddy, leave him along. It looks like he needs some time to himself," Chaun said.

Nobody bothered to notice that Wormmon was gone too.

* * *

Commandramon was in the pool area. However, due to his cybernetic parts, he was wary about entering it. Instead, he just lied down on one of the lounge chairs.

"How are you? Are you okay?" Wormmon asked, climbing up into one of the chairs next to him and startling Commandramon.

"I don't want to talk about it," the reptile replied.

"I can't blame you. You know, we have something in common."

"Yeah, what is that?"

"Like you, I did things in the past, before meeting Chaun and being partnered to him, that I regret."

"Yeah? Did helping with an attempted genocide count as one of them?"

Wormmon just continued looking at him. "No, not quite. However, you were partnered with Eddy, and that looks intentional. Maybe Anubimon felt that you weren't too far gone to be sent to the dark area and instead made you his partner."

"That is, if Anubimon even exists."

"You never know. Chaun said that Eddy found you as a virtual pet. Maybe someone put you there to find."

Commandramon just shrugged. "Yeah? Well, you don't have a mega form that's incredibly deadly and hard to control, do you?"

"That I'm not sure about. Chaun did research on my higher forms and, though he got JewelBeemon right, he didn't figure out what was past that. There were a couple of options, and neither of them made sense to him. It might be the same with you. Darkdramon might not be your only mega form."

Commandramon looked off into the now-red sky. "Still, I don't want to take the risk and accidentally hurt Eddy."

"I can't blame you. I wouldn't want anything to happen to Chaun, not after all that we have been through together." Wormmon looked into the same direction that Commandramon was looking. "But the time may come when you have to take that risk. Against Eddy's brother for instance. Perhaps against both of them. We have no way of knowing whether Clayton's good or bad."

Commandramon knew Wormmon was right. Suddenly, a new memory popped up into his mind.

**He was Darkdramon and he was coming face to face with Derek and BlackAgumon. "How dare you! You claimed to be fighting for the forces of good and yet you turn out to be just as tyrannical as Mugendramon before you!"**

"**Oh, man, what did you expect?"**

"**You're supposed to be one of the Chosens of legend! You're supposed to be a hero!"**

"**Yeah, right! I ain't no hero, you dumb lizard! Besides, I can take you on myself as long as I have my Digimon! You know our Mega form has gauntlets that were meant for your kind, right." Darkdramon swore he saw a jackle-headed Digimon appear behind Derek as he held out his digivice.**

"What is it?" Wormmon asked.

"I had a flashback." Commandramon was panting. "Now I know how to get to the Mega level. This won't be good for Eddy if we become Darkdramon. I remember how hard it was to control myself with that form, but the two of us together." Commandramon looked up to Eddy's window. "I've got to warn him!"

"But, if you figured out how to get to Mega, we should tell them all."

"It's too dangerous. With this type of evolution…" Commandramon paused for a second. "I can't tell them."

"Commandramon…"

"If Eddy knew, then he would attempt to force an evolution if we ever went against Derek. If he did that, I'd become Darkdramon for sure. I can't have that."

Wormmon knew he didn't have any choice but to go with Commandramon's wishes. "What about me or Ed's partner?"

"It would get to Eddy eventually if I told you guys."

* * *

Jonny had finally finished talking. Monodramon was with him, snuggled up against him. "So, that was how you came to the digital world, huh?" he heard a female voice say from in front of him. The girl had long brown hair and was wearing blue, circular glasses. Her partner, who was sitting next to her, was very similar to Terriermon but brown and pink instead of white and green. There was another kid with her, a boy, but his face and partner were obscured by shadows.

"Yeah, everything. You probably hate me now that you know that I tried attacking an unsuspecting Digimon just to get revenge."

The girl smiled a little bit. "No, it was a year ago. You changed a lot since then."

"That he has…" a voice said. A book had appeared in the shadows and opened up to reveal a cloaked Digimon.

The girl opened up her green and purple digivice. "Wisemon? Who are you and what are you doing here?" she asked.

"I am here to give Jonny something." Wisemon handed Jonny a blue crest nestled in a tag.

"You have a crest?" Monodramon asked.

"The Crest of Friendship in fact,"

"But, I don't have any friends except… Plank… and he's a piece of wood that I somehow thought could talk. And even then, he betrayed me by stranding me here."

"I'm your friend," the girl said. "So is Jesse."

"So were Zack, Garrett, and the two Kankers. And so am I," Wisemon commented, before disappearing into his book.

"Wait! What do you mean? I don't even know you!" Jonny yelled as the book disappeared into thin air.

"So, tell me about your adventures with Zack. What did he look like?" the girl asked.

"What do you want to do? Keep him up all night?" Lopmon asked.

Jonny smiled. "For starters, I didn't meet Zack until after we both got captured by the emperor, who later on turned out to be…"

* * *

A/N: Kind of a short chapter, but I didn't have too much to work with here. Even the Truth or dare game and Commandramon's revelation were afterthoughts, though I did think of a way to use the second one. Oh, I'm evil.

Originally, I was going to actually have Paildramon appear, but I realized that this contradicted previously established canon in my own fic… Sad ain't it. Basically, the whole 'Digimon Empire Episode 2' sequence in a previous chapter where Wormmon becomes Stingmon for the first time took place after the flashback and basically means the first time after becoming partners. Then again, I do retcon 'A Town Called Ed' a little.


	22. In a Matter of Hours

Chapter 22: In a Matter of Hours

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the shows represented.

* * *

Jessica woke up to the sound of the alarm going off on her digivice. She got up out of bed to go check the glowing device and sure enough, there was a bio-emergence. It didn't say what though, which she thought was kind of strange.

"Ready to go, Tailmon?" she asked. The white cat with a big head awoke, uncurled, and got up, stretching.

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"Must be a pretty high level, then, if we don't know."

Jessica smiled as she put on a white shirt with a cat head on the front and blue jeans. Tailmon made sure that her tail ring was secure while she was at it.

"It's over at Sagebrush Park on Crestline Drive off Airport Road. That's not too far away."

"Alright, let's get going," Tailmon said.

"Yeah," Jessica quietly opened her bedroom door and walked out, trying not to wake up her parents as she walked past their bedroom and into the living room. Then she took a left and arrived at the front door. She wasn't going to use that, though and instead opened the door to the garage, walked through, and shut it quietly. There was a side door that her parents wouldn't hear open, so she approached that and opened it. Now they were on the opposite side of the house from her and her parents' bedrooms.

She then proceeded to open the plastic gate to the front yard and walk out into the street. It was about 3am now and more than likely everybody in the area was asleep. The stars were shining and the distant city lights could be seen from where she was at.

She pulled out a card and prepared to slash it. "Now, let's see this card that my brother gave me work. Digi-Modify! Armor Digivolution!"

* * *

"Sir, the subject has left the building," an agent said from the inside of a black van along the road. Since it was dark and since it was parked next to one of the other houses, Jessica didn't think anything of it, assuming that the neighbors just had someone staying at their house.

_"Alright, I'm tracking the digital lifeform. It seems to be headed straight to a park near the Air Force Base, just like we planned,"_ Cox said through the man's phone. The plan was to lure her with a fake bioemergence performed using Somnus' systems. She was going to be the first to be apprehended and confined. After her, they were going to go for the kids in Peach Creek.

They also needed the girl's father, too, but that would be easy.

* * *

Rolf knew why he was being cuffed, and led out of the house into a white van. He had been warned, but chose to stay behind to work. If he would have known that this was going to happen, he would have gone with the others. He just didn't believe them.

"Don't I get to say I told you so?" Betamon asked as he and Rolf were shut in the back of the van.

"Shut up, vile amphibian!"

Betamon just rolled his eyes. A few minutes later, the van had finally stopped and was put in park. The back doors to the van then opened and Rolf and Betamon were led out. "I'm sure you already know why you've been arrested," a blond man with scruffy hair, sunglasses and a black suit said.

"I'll have you know that Rolf is a citizen of the nation of-"

"We know already," the blond man said. "Why are you speaking in the third person anyway? I know your language has a peculiar agglutinating grammar with features such as the use of cases instead of prepositions, ergativity, and the complete lack of pronouns, but that is a bit ridiculous. Oh, well, come along."

Rolf glared at the blond. He and Betamon were eventually led down different halls and Rolf was thrown into a white cell with a girl, who was about ten, with long black hair and amber colored eyes. She had a somber look to her and was sitting down. The door was completely sealed shut after his cuffs were removed.

Rolf walked up to the door and started banging against it.

"The door is shockproof," the girl said, looking at him. "Nobody'll hear you, not that they'd care anyway."

"I let you know that the son of a shepherd is not going to give up that easily."

"Do I look like I've given up?" the girl asked.

Rolf was bewildered. "Rolf thinks that you may have."

"I haven't. I'm just waiting. So your name's Rolf?"  
"Why yes, Rolf, son of a shepherd! And who are _you_ mysterious Goth girl?"

The girl smiled a little bit. "Just because my hair is black doesn't mean I'm Goth. Besides, does it look like I'm dressed the part?" In fact, the girl was dressed in a white shirt with a purple cat head on it and had on blue jeans.

Rolf shrugged his shoulders. "It is a dye, is it?"

The girl shook her head. "No, it's just my natural hair color."

"Oh, you have a brother. May I ask who this brother is?"

"His name is Zack. You probably wouldn't know who he is."

"I have heard of him. He led a group of Tamers including Robert, Chaun and Rachelle, correct?"

"Yeah," Jessica smiled. "So, what are you stuck in here for?" Her mood was far better than it was before.

"Why Rolf had a Digimon."

"You too, huh?" she asked. "I have a Tailmon. What do you have?"

"Betamon. So, do you actually know Chaun and Robert?"

"Why yes. Robert is staying with the one-time short Ed-boy after being kicked out of his aunt's trailer."

"Wow, that's not good. At least he found a friend."

"Yes, yes he did. Eddy is a good boy, especially since he stopped scamming."

"Scamming? Wow, I gotta meet this guy. He sounds way cool."

"Rolf should let you know that ever since he encountered his older brother last summer, he let go of that aspect of his past."

"Well, at least he has an older brother and he can call him and hang out."

"You don't understand. Eddy's brother beat him senseless. He is also the evil Digimon Emperor."

Jessica looked Rolf in the eye. "Whoa, that is totally screwed up."

"And to make matters worse, he has another brother that he didn't know about."

"What's his life, a giant soap opera? I've gotta meet him." Jessica smiled widely.

"Did you meet any other tamers in the digital world?"

"We met Robert's cousin Lee. Man, that chick was nasty. Other than that… well… Chaun met a guy from where he lived." Jessica could barely contain her excitement. "Man, this is so cool!"

Suddenly, the door opened and a group of armed guards in white and black armor ran in. "Come this way!" The lead guard said. His face couldn't be seen because of the helmet on his head and his voice was obviously going through a synthesizer. "And don't try anything."

Jessica had a smug expression on her face. "Will I at least see my family?"

"No, they are back at home."

Jessica lied back on her bench. "Not coming then."

Rolf complied with the guards as one of them grabbed Jessica's arm and dragged her out of the room. "You are coming with us, girl."

"Ow!" They were led to a room with an oval table of glossy obsidian in the middle. On the other opposite end of the room from them, Cox was looking out the window.

"Good to see you've made it," Cox remarked.

"Oh, please, after you decided to kidnap me and keep me in that cell for who knows how long."

"Right. I guarantee I have the best of reasons for that. Sit down."

"I want to talk to my parents," Jessica said.

"Your father is here on premises. You may talk to him once he's done addressing the four parents of Tamers that actually showed up."

Jessica rolled her eyes. Cox already knew from her father's account that she was quite a handful. He had wondered how the man had kept the one he called Zack under control. Then again, from Zack's records, he was well behaved.

"I take it you are now acquainted?"

"Yeah," Jessica said as she was sitting down along with Rolf. Armed guards remained just in case the two Tamers made a move on Cox.

"Rolf would like to know what made you bring him here," Rolf said.

"Simple, you Tamers are playing a dangerous game. Ever since the disappearance of Jimmy, Sarah, Eric, Nazz and Rachelle, we have had to change our stance when it came to you Tamers. You see…"

"Wait, is that the same Eric that helped us get to a portal back to the real world?" Jessica asked.

"From the accounts in Digimon Empire, you are correct. He is Nazz's brother. As I was saying, before I got rudely interrupted, we decided that you had to be brought in and monitored by Somnus. Now that Eddy seems to have led a team into the digital world just a few minutes ago, the situation is even worse. You are aware of Eddy's other brother, right, Rolf?"

"Why yes. One of the evil tamers working for the Emperor told Eddy about him."

"Did he tell him his name?"

"No, he didn't."

"Good. You see, Eddy's other brother is one of a number of kids that are trapped in the digital world, along with David, Jesse and Abigail Symanski, Daniel, Jonny, the Kanker sisters, and Garrett." All the sudden, klaxons sounded and the room was blinking red. "What is it, Trish?" Cox asked, answering his cell phone.

_"There's a bio-emergence. It's of an unusual composition. I found three figures, two human and one Digimon."_

"Use the digivice scan."

_"Got it. Three digivice signals. It seems one of the human signals has two digivices."_

"I'll have Rolf intercept them with adult supervision."

"What! I've been stuck here longer than Rolf!"

Cox looked at the girl. "Okay, you can go too. Trish, contact Sam. Tell him plans have changed." Jessica lit up.

_"Got it."_

"You have who the signals are from?" Cox asked.

_"Unfortunately, they seemed to have gone into stealth mode except for one of them, which seems to belong to…"_ Cox listened to the name. It didn't surprise him one bit. He did go to the digital world fourteen years ago, after all.

* * *

Rolf was rushed out of the meeting room along with Jessica. "So, now what?"

"The two of you are being sent on a mission," Cox said. "Due to procedure, you are going to have adult supervision."

"My dad, right?" Jessica asked.

"Yes." They were lead to a room with transparent cages. Cox talked to the operator who was wearing a white labcoat. To Jessica, the entire facility reminded her of a cross between a hospital and the Apple store. The man in the white labcoat pressed a couple of buttons and a pair of doors opened and Betamon and Tailmon jumped out and headed straight for their partners.

"Oh, Jessica! I'm glad I see you again!" Tailmon exclaimed as she latched onto her partner.

Jessica hugged back.

"So, we're free?" Betamon asked Rolf.

"Unfortunately the accursed government agents of this facility are going to send us on a mission."

"Yes, and your mission is to track down the two Tamers and a Digimon that have come from the Digital World."

Cox took them to the lobby where several parents of other tamers were waiting, upset because their meeting was cancelled. "Rolf!" one of the parents called out. Rolf recognized her as Eddy's mom. "Do you know what happened to Eddy?"

"He's in the digital world, currently."

Eddy's mom rolled her eyes. "Just when I thought he was finally getting past his brother's influence."

"So, you're Eddy's mom?" Jessica asked, holding out her hand to shake.

The woman shook her hand. "Yes, I am. Do you know Eddy?"

"Nope, but from what Rolf said, I want to meet him. He sounds way cool. My name's Jessica by the way."

Eddy's mom was taken aback by Jessica. There was something unsettling about the girl. "Maybe when this is all taken care of you can." The woman smiled uneasily.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, your father is waiting," Cox pointed at a man just outside the door. Eddy's mother looked at the man. She knew exactly who he was. She didn't know if he recognized her.

* * *

The reunion was simple. Sam and Jessica hugged, glad to see each other again. Eventually, things took a slightly more serious turn as Sam voiced his opinions to Cox.

"Okay, I have a complaint," Sam said, walking toward the SUV that was illegally parked in a fire lane. His face was obscured by the dark of night. Jessica and Rolf followed the duo along with their partner Digimon. "You see, I had to park over here because every single parking space was taken up. One person in particular with a white sports car that's extremely ugly had the nerve to take up two parking spots."

"We are aware of that. We merely tolerate him ourselves. You see, the car belongs to a special case: a man who was divorced recently and whose children are currently trapped in the digital world."

"That's not an excuse. If that car didn't take up two spots, I wouldn't have had to park where I did."

"I'm sorry. I'll be sure to cite the scientist in question though I will have you know that his work in quantum physics is invaluable." Jessica got in the backseat in accordance with her father's rules while Rolf got in the front seat. They each had their partner Digimon in their laps. "If you want," Cox continued, "I can give you my employee parking space. It's nice and close to the building."

"I don't care about that. Heck, I usually park far from a building anyway."

"Understood. By the way, the green digivice signal is on Rathink Avenue. We think it may be one of the local kids. Just put 100 Rathink Ave. in your GPS and you'll get there."

Sam nodded and started the engine as he closed the door. He and Cox had developed a working relationship, though it soured immensely because Cox having apprehended Jessica the night before after she had been lured to a fake Bio-emergence. In fact, the only reason Sam was willing to work with Cox was to get his son back. Sam managed to get here by jet, something that Cox willingly paid for but he still didn't like what happened. He felt that she should be allowed to stay in a hotel room with him at least.

He pulled out of Somnus Headquarters which was located in the Space Needle-like building that appeared briefly in the city scene in the Big Picture Show. He got onto the freeway and was soon headed toward Rathink Avenue. "How are you doing, Jess," he asked, looking though his rearview mirror.

"Alright, I guess. They had good food there."

Rolf yawned. "Stressful day, huh, Ralph?"

Rolf looked straight at his Chauffer. "Rolf's name is Rolf. He'd rather not talk about it."

"You're a foreigner, eh?"

"Why yes. I'm sure some of you American's don't appreciate those from other countries but…"

"I'm not American," Rolf was surprised. "Actually, I'm a citizen, but I'm not from this country originally. So, where are you from?"

"Rolf is from…"

Jessica was already bored. She hated it when her father got in conversations with foreigners and asked about their homelands.

* * *

"Here it is: Rathink Ave." Sam said, pulling into the street to park. "Jessica, do you know where they're at?"

"I've got one." Jessica opened the door and started walking down the street. The dark SUV was parked in front of the first house on right side of the street and Jessica walked to the third house with Tailmon, Rolf and Betamon. She tried ringing the doorbell.

"Ah, this is the one-time short Ed-boy's house," Rolf commented.

"That Eddy?"

"Yes."

"Someone's in there." Jessica looked at her digivice whose colors were dark enough to be obscured by the night. She was about to knock when Rolf grabbed her hand.

"Don't. Both of Eddy's parents are at Somnus right now. If you do, you'll alert those inside of our presence."

"Who's this Eddy?" Sam asked.

"A member of the cul-de-sac who, up until a few weeks ago, was the smallest kid in the cul-de-sac. Since then, he has had an abnormal growth spurt."

"So, what should we do?" Jessica asked.

"I've got an idea," Tailmon said, extending one of her claws and sticking it in the lock. She wiggled it around a little bit and opened the door. "Tada."

"But that's breaking and entering," Sam objected.

"So? We need to see who this guy is so we know he's not with the Emperor. For all we know, it's Zack."

Sam complied and followed the kids into the house. It was completely dark except for a light on in the kitchen and upstairs. Jessica looked at her digivice. "He's not in the kitchen."

"Then upstairs," Sam said. Rolf started walking up the stairs as quietly as possible followed by Jessica and Sam along with their partner Digimon, well, except for Sam's.

None of them noticed the tall figure that walked into the living room from the kitchen after they exited.

* * *

He was looking for something. The second digivice he had pointed to this room and he didn't know why, but he knew it was the reason he was sent back to this world.

Finally, he spotted it in the closet. But as he walked toward it, he heard the door open. He thought he knew who it was, but he was wrong. He looked into the eyes of the dark-haired girl who walked into the room, filled with surprise.

"Zack?" she asked, her mouth open wide. Soon, Rolf walked in along with tall, muscular, middle-aged man that he didn't recognize.

Suddenly, the egg in the closet started to hatch and something green started to make it's way out.

* * *

A/N: Another short chapter, but it got where I wanted everything to be for my next twisted move. Chances are that if you guessed the identities of the two tamers who are now in the real world, you're wrong. The next chapter will show that your expectations may be off, in a nice wham episode fashion. Oh, how I love wham episodes (if you don't know what that is, look it up).


	23. Marie's Battle

Chapter 23: Marie's Battle

* * *

He was ready. He had his clothes packed, several books packed, and a bunch of iced tea in cans. Yes, he had a thing for iced tea, even packing it for when he went to the digital world in the first place.

The fact that he knew that he was going to be going back then was something surprising. He even went to that physics exhibit to get there, having received a text on his digivice saying that he would lead a new team of chosen children to fight off evil in the digital world.

He didn't know that it would involve several of his friends coming here as well, along with the person he cared about the most.

He stood there, thinking of her, realizing that he needed to stop his brother at all costs. He couldn't do it now, since his Digimon was currently at a low level. It reverted to its child form again and now they were about to leave.

"So, what now?" Veemon asked, playfully. He was a blue lizard that stood on its hind legs. The tamer looked at his partner and handed him the backpack.

"Take this and put it inside Blimpmon. This is all I need."

"So, what are you going to do?" Veemon asked, walking out of the room with the backpack swung over his back.

The boy smiled. "I have something to deliver to a friend. I also have a few thank-you cards to hand to the manager of that diner we always go to."

"Oh, okay. Well, see you later!"

He walked out of his room and pressed a button on an elevator, the one Veemon wasn't using, and upon getting in, pressed the P button, swiped his card, and the elevator went down quickly. He could feel his frame lift slightly.

Then it stopped. He was at the prison level. He had been here once, having been imprisoned by his own brother after finding out his identity. It was here he had met Garrett and the two Kankers that were of note.

His friend was waiting at the door. "Well, LordKnightmon, here's your dictionary. It was the best one I could replicate."

"Thank you."

"You haven't given those books to Lee, have you?"

"No, I gave them to another one of the prisoners. I can't tell you about her."

He froze for a second, his breathing becoming erratic. "Wait, a girl?"

"Yes. Like I said, I can't tell you about her."

He pulled out his wallet and showed LordKnightmon a picture. "Is this her?"

"No, she has red hair."

He knew then that it wasn't her. He would have to come back for her when he came with the other group of Tamers. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he had no other choice.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

* * *

Marie didn't have quite so much to do. She got her stuff done and then proceeded to head straight to Blimpmon. "So, where's the prince at, Rusky?"

Garrett didn't like that she called him that. "He's coming. Veemon just dropped his stuff here. I know that he's not going to tell his brother he's leaving with us, either."

"So, what's my job going to be?"

"That's up to him."

Marie walked into the blimp and rolled her eyes. "Thought so."

What neither of them knew, though, was that a certain second in command of the country was monitoring them.

* * *

Clayton ran around the corner, almost running into May in the process. "Whoa, sorry," he said.

"Oh, no problem," she replied as she walked down the hallway.

"Yeah, she's used to it," FanBeemon commented on her back.

Clayton took a deep breath. "Yeah? Having two older sisters probably does that. How was it growing up with them?"

May shrugged. "I didn't like it that much. I was always the one they bossed around."

"Yeah?"

"What about you?"

"I didn't grow up around my older siblings. Heck, I didn't even meet Derek until I got here."

May smiled. "Yeah? Must have been great not having to share food at the dinner table with anyone but your parents."

"Heh, yeah, I guess."

"You don't seem too sure."

"Yeah, I know. It's just…" They walked into the hangar.

"It's about time you made it," Veemon commented.

"Oh, please, May was running late, too," Clayton playfully jabbed Veemon in the arm.

"Ow, that hurt! My partner's abusing me!"

Garrett couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Oh great, his brother's rubbing off on him," the guy joked while repairing a panel on the side of Blimpmon. "He's going to want to play uncle with you next."

"I never had to play that game," Clayton remarked.

"Be glad you didn't. It ain't fun."

Marie and Dorumon walked out of the blimp as Clayton and May walked toward the entrance with their partners. "It's about time you made it. I thought we were going to have to hire a search party for you two."

"Yeah, right," was his response.

"What were you doing? Making out in the princely suite?"

May just blushed from that. "Marie!"

"I've never kissed a girl before, honest," Clayton told her.

Garrett was about ready to strangle her. She was impatient, and her impatience was causing her to make moronic jokes. "I'm ready to blow this joint as much as you are, but that doesn't mean you have to be a complete idiot in the process."

"Oh, please. It's not as if you have a boyfriend waiting with the other team. Where's Elecmon, anyway?"

"On Blimpmon."

"Oh, okay."

Then they heard the door open. Marie and Garrett looked in its direction to see Damien and several Digimon surrounding him: PicoDevimon, a Leomon and an Ogremon. "And where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"To WWW to retrieve Eddy. What do you think?" Marie replied.

"You're not going anywhere. You have an unauthorized passenger going with you," Clayton came down the hatch.

"Oh, hey, Damien, how's it going?" he asked, uneasily.

"Not by Blimpmon, Clayton. You are to report to your brother in the next fifteen minutes or else."

"Wait, Clayton?" Garrett asked, confused.

"Or else what, David?" Clayton asked. Damien wasn't amused, lifting an eyebrow.

"Or else you'll have to deal with his wrath when he sends out an entire squadron just to bring you back here. You see, we're on the brink of war and we are going to need all the help we can get. I'm sure you have heard of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance against us."

"Yeah, and I've heard of the Gunslinger satellite in orbit right above us ready to destroy the fortress and blow it to smithereens."

Marie had no idea why Damien was threatening the group like that. "You guys go on in."

"Oh, now, you've got patience," Garrett commented.

Marie just rolled her eyes. "Oh, no, I just have to defeat this guy's two guards and he'll go away. He doesn't even have a partner Digimon." Clayton and Garrett ran in. Marie looked at the two Digimon, one an Ogremon and the other a Leomon. Why did Damien have a pair of Adult level Digimon instead of several perfects?

"So, what are you planning?" Marie asked.

"Well, my love, I made up everything about Derek wanting his brother here. In fact, he was planning on sending the guy to File Island." He had no idea that Clayton had ordered Blimpmon to relay their conversation to him as long as he was on the Digimon. Needless to say, he wasn't surprised and as he entered Blimpmon's bridge, which looked something like what the bridge on Star Trek would look like in the 19th century, he continued listening.

"Yeah, you don't even have a partner and Dorurumon could beat the snot out of your two bodyguards."

"That's what you think." Damien held up a small, portable touch-screen device. "This is something I developed from Garrett's schematics for the digivice. I call it the Digivice Touch."

"Who do you think you are, Steve Jobs?" Marie asked. "You certainly have an ego to fit the part."

Damien smirked. "Well, my love, Steve Jobs never had a digivice in his hands. Especially not one that could do what this can." He pressed on the screen and accessed a menu. He then picked one of nine icons and opened up one labeled Digimon Stats. Then he pressed one Digimon, Ogremon, scrolled down to the bottom and pressed a button there.

"Behold, the power of my new digivice." Damien backed up and said, "Activate, Jogress Evolution!"

"Ogremon!"

"Leomon!" The two Digimon shouted as they started to glow.

"Jogress to…!"

The two glowing Digimon became one: a long haired lion with massive arms and purple fur. "MadLeomon!"

MadLeomon

Level: Perfect

Attribute: Virus

Special Attacks: Beast-King Fallen Fist, Necrotoxin Claw

"Oh, crap!" She looked over at Dorumon who nodded.

"Dorumon Evolve!"

"Dorugamon!" Dorugamon confronted MadLeomon. It was dangerous to be this close to the blimp so Marie realized she needed to draw the battle away from it, especially since Blimpmon was a mere Adult Level Digimon itself.

Then there's Damien and PicoDevimon. If Marie was right, Damien could evolve him to at least the Adult Level himself, Devimon, possibly even further to the Perfect form of NeoDevimon. Heck, according to Garrett, there were parts of the digivice that had unknown functions. Perhaps Damien would use one of those.

If the situation left her control, would she be willing to stay behind while the rest left? Marie didn't like that idea, but there was a possibility.

MadLeomon punched into the air at Dorugamon, yelling out "Beast King Fallen Fist!" and causing an image of himself to head toward the beast, who jumped out of the way just in time as the image went out of the hangar.

"Power Metal!" Dorugamon yelled, unleashing two metal balls at MadLeomon, causing very slight damage to his shoulder.

* * *

On Blimpmon's bridge, Clayton, Garrett and Marie, along with their Digimon watched the battle unfold on the viewscreen. "She needs my help," Garrett said.

"Alright, go help her," Clayton replied.

"I'm going too," May said. Clayton just nodded. She followed Garrett through the halls.

"Why do you want to help my sister so much?" May asked.

"She's a member of the team." Then, as Garrett turned a corner, he commented. "Now, if only we could get Zack to do a little more."

"I know, right? Ever since our last mission, he's just been lazy."  
"Then again, if he hadn't attempted to force Veedramon to become that thing…" They were at the exit. "Hey, Marie, we're here to give you a hand!"

Marie turned around. "I don't need your help."

"Oh, sure you do! A Perfect Level opponent isn't going to be defeated by an Adult Level!" Marie just stuck her tougue out at Garrett, who simply rolled his eyes. May was the next one to speak.  
"Marie, what do you have to prove?"

Marie took a deep breath. "That I'm just as good as you guys. Here's the thing, you guys can go to the Perfect level while I'm stuck at the adult stage. I'm sick and tired of being left behind."

Garrett could get what she was getting at and so could Elecmon. "Marie, do you remember what caused me to get to that stage?" The rabbit-like Digimon asked.

Marie sighed. "Of course, Zack forced Veedramon to evolve and it turned into… that… thing. What was it called? MortisVeedramon? It was running out of control at that temple and you felt you had to stop him because Zack was your friend."

"Yeah, because I cared about him," Garrett replied. "He was having a massive breakdown at that point and I didn't want it to go any further. I considered using the hacks I developed, but then decided against it. Suddenly, this blue card appeared in my deck out of nowhere. I was actually expecting Panjyamon, but oh well."

"Then there's May," FanBeemon commented, "And that was just a few days ago."

Marie looked at the battle field to see Dorugamon pinned to the ground by MadLeomon. "Dorumon!" she shouted the Digimon's child name as drool slid down from MadLeomon's mouth.

"Here's your chance. Evolve your Digimon because you care, not because you want to prove yourself."

Marie knew he was right. She cared about her Digimon enough to want to help him, unlike Lee who simply saw hers as a tool for fighting. As she pulled a card out of her deck pocket, she knew that it was going to be what she needed, and it was. She slid the blue card across the reader on her orange and blue digivice and saw it glow.

"Card Slash! Matrix Evolution!" she yelled as a light came over Dorugamon, causing MadLeomon to inch back out of fear of blindness.

"Dorugamon, Evolve!" The new form was red and far bigger and longer with a metal horn coming out of the front of its snout and large metallic wings with gold needles attached to them. To top it off, it had a gold lance on its tail.

"DoruGreymon!"

* * *

Inside Blimpmon's bridge, Clayton watched attentively as DoruGreymon appeared. He had an open book with a cover consisting of two green eyes on top, palm trees on the sides, along with a red rectangle and a gold circle. "Well, she made it," he commented, smiling.

Now that she was at the perfect stage, that meant that they were one step closer to achieving Mega and eventually defeating his brother.

The question was how to get there. Clayton had his theories, but unfortunately he couldn't test out any of them. The last team got the power from the sovereigns, but that was out of the question since Mugendramon had his Darkdramon squads hunt down four of the five and delete them.

He was going to get his answer sooner than he realized and in a way he didn't want.

* * *

MadLeomon jumped backwards from seeing DoruGreymon. It launched another Beast King Fallen Fist which was dodged by the immense dragon-beast that floated before him. Then he lunged forward. "Necrotoxin Claw!" he yelled, ready to claw the enemy Digimon just before getting hit by a Beast King Fist from Leomon.

MadLeomon landed, looking at his lower level counterpart. That was just the distraction DoruGreymon needed.

"Bloody Tower!" was the last thing MadLeomon heard before getting skewered through the back by the lance on DoruGreymon's tail. He was brought into the air and felt himself disintegrate from the center onward. Then the Data formed into two Digi-eggs that flew out of the hangar.

"Great! Now we can leave!" May exclaimed much to the astonishment of Garrett.

"Um, May, aren't you forgetting someone?" he asked. Marie wasn't fooled.

"Rusky's right."

Damien stood there, smiling, unfazed by the sight of the Digimon that he sent to its death. "Don't you even feel anything?" Garrett asked.

"What is there to feel? Emotions are a weakness, something that is completely unneeded. Of course, I still feel them." He held out the Digivice Touch once again after making a few clicks. "Now the fun begins. It's time to go to the Mega Level." He smiled as he yelled out the keywords: "Biomerge Activate!" Suddenly a mass of energy and fractal code enveloped him and PicoDevimon.

* * *

Clayton knew this was going to be bad. Instead of showing what the Biomerge actually looked like, the screen showed a transformation sequence which included Damien's naked body. Clayton looked on in horror at the sight of the guy merging with the evil Digimon that has constantly been his companion.

"So that's how Derek does it nowadays." He looked at the two cards he had in his hand that he was going to use if the battle outside got out of hand. Using the two cards would have caused his Digimon to evolve to a pseudo-Perfect level without affecting Eddy's Digimon. Unfortunately, using them right now wouldn't do much good and as he watched the final piece of the evolution sequence consisting of a tall, skinny, black, cape-wearing Digimon that reminded him of Skeletor with the face the way it was. The Digimon's frame was V-shaped and it had a large helmet of sorts and a massive staff. One thing was for sure: this wasn't the small, annoying Digimon's normal Mega form of Daemon for better or for worse.

* * *

"PicoDevimon Biomerge to…!"

"Hermmon!"

Upon finishing up the biomerge sequence, the team heard Clayton yell out something from Blimpmon's loudspeaker: "Everybody, get in now!"

That's when Hermmon made a move for the blimp, but DoruGreymon knocked it out of the way. "Bloody Tower!" it yelled, positioning its drill for the kill. Unfortunately, that was knocked out of the way by Hermmon's staff.

"You can't possibly defeat the power of a Mega Level," Damien said from inside Hermmon.

"He's right," Blimpmon said. "It's either get out of here or else we get slaughtered."

Marie knew that even if they all left, Hermmon would go after them. "Guys, go on ahead!"

Garrett didn't like that one bit. "He'll kill you if you stay behind!"

"No he won't," she responded.

"Yeah, but…"

"Don't worry, Rusky. One way or another, I'll survive." Then she turned to Leomon, "Take him back inside, will you?" Leomon grabbed his partner who struggled, trying to get out of his grasp and jumped into the back end of the blimp, followed closely by May who looked back at her sister with a sad look on her face.

"You sure?"

"I'll be fine. DoruGreymon can hold his own against a Mega just like AeroVeedramon." With that, May walked into the blimp along with her partner and the blimp took off.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Marie turned to her Digimon who was locked in hand to hand combat with Hermmon. "Let's go DoruGreymon!"

DoruGreymon created a metal sphere ten times its already massive size and launched it at Hermmon. "Metal Meteor!" Marie gestured with her Digimon as the sphere headed toward Hermmon. Unfortunately, Hermmon broke through it, causing shards of it to fall to the ground, and proceeded to attack DoruGreymon head on with its staff.

* * *

Garrett was ticked. There was no doubt about it as he walked onto Blimpmon's bridge and walked over to Clayton who by that point was already standing to offer his apologies and punched the black-haired boy in the face.

"We've got to head back."

"I know. We will!"

"Now!"

Then Blimpmon spoke to them though the airship's intercom. "No way am I headed back there. That Digimon would skin us alive."

Clayton looked Garrett in the eye. "I really hate to say it, but he's right. Don't worry, man, we'll save her."

"By then it will probably be too late."

"You know Marie well enough to have faith in her. She's far stronger than she looks."

May looked at Clayton before looking down, tears streaming down her face.

"So, where to? There are only three of us left, six if you include the Digimon." Garrett asked.

"Daniel was in El País Occidental, keeping tabs on the Tamers that came from the real world. We'll head there." Clayton clicked on a few buttons and brought up a map on the viewscreen. "Here, specifically. This harbor town will be a good place to start looking."

"Why do you say that?"

"Last time I dreamt about Eddy, he, Ed and Chaun were there."

* * *

A few hours later, Blimpmon reached the port town and, after going through customs, landed at one of the ports. The ramp in front opened up and Clayton found himself taking in the humid ocean air. Veemon, Elecmon and Garrett followed him. "So, now what?" Garrett asked.

"I don't know. I'm kind of nervous," Clayton said, visibly shaking.

"Don't worry, buddy, Eddy's not too bad a guy."

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you," Veemon told him.

Clayton smiled.

"Oh, yeah," Garrett started speaking again, "You never explained the whole Clayton thing."

"Clayton's my first name, but I go by my middle name, or at least a shortened version of it. When I was born, my mom didn't expect to have twins and so my dad named me after my granddad. However, my mom, since they were on the verge of divorce at the time, put Clayton as my first name, since she didn't like the name my dad had for me. My dad, however, decided to use that name anyway, and it ended up on my birth certificate as my middle name. As a little kid, I couldn't pronounce the entire name, being four syllables long, so my dad shortened it."

"Crazy. At least you didn't get stuck with a Gilligan's island name like the other ones," he said.

"Yeah," Clayton kept walking.

"What's Gilligan's Island?" Veemon asked.

"Sounds like one of those human TV shows," Elecmon replied.

Soon after, Clayton spotted Rachelle and started waving at her. He then walked up to her. They were still on the edge of the port, walking along a brick road. "Hey, long time no see." He noticed the skinny guy next to her. "And this is…?"

"This is Double D."

Edd shook his hand. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise," Clayton responded.

"I am kind of curious…" Edd stuttered a little bit. "Are you by any chance related to…?" That was when Clayton spotted Eddy, Chaun and Ed walking from behind a nearby building.

"Excuse me for a second," Clayton was sweating profusely by this point, mainly from the armpits. He walked up to his brother and held out his hand. "Hey… um… uh…"

Eddy was just as shocked to see him. "Clayton, right?"

Clayton was somewhat relieved to know that he at least knew about him. "Yeah. That's my first name."

Eddy was slightly confused by that. At least he wasn't evil.

"However," Clayton continued. "I go by my middle name."

Rachelle was shocked that they at least knew each other somewhat and by how similar they looked. Edd was really surprised himself, wondering if they were brothers. _No, that can't be right,_ he thought. _Or is it? Eddy has been keeping something from us. I wonder if this is it._

"Which is…?" Eddy asked.

The next half-second seemed to take forever for Eddy. Garrett was just in the background, egging his friend to get on with it. Eddy saw Veemon and wondered where Zack was, not expecting the answer to come in the next few seconds. Elecmon was rolling his eyes. Robert and Daniel were walking up the port, engrossed in conversation, Robert doing most of the talking while Daniel was scratching his chin. Daniel then looked over to see Clayton and Eddy facing each other and was shocked to see that. Robert, on the other hand, smiled widely when he saw his friends.

"…Zack."

* * *

A/N: Sorry if you don't like the ending to this. It was completely intended from the beginning of the story and to be truthful, the name Clayton was just a ruse. Really, the 'Eddy having another sibling' plot is one that I haven't really found before anywhere and I wanted to explore it and the consequences of it (though, from the ending you've probably deducted that more than just Zack is his sibling. I intended to explore it in The End of the Ed as we know it, too, but that didn't happen.). Yeah. Review if you like the story and even if you don't like it.

Hermmon's probably one of the most obscure Digimon you can use in a story, not even having his own canon attacks. Heck, he only appeared really briefly in V-Tamer.


	24. Backlash

Chapter 24: Backlash

Disclaimer: Don't own

Zack didn't have words for the shock on Eddy's face after he met him. He hadn't expected his introduction to do such a thing. Eddy was completely stupefied. All the sudden, the guy just turned around and started walking away.

Zack was about to start calling after him, but he was all the sudden forced to turn around by his friend Robert. "Man!" Robert hugged him intensely. "It's so good to see you again! I'm so sorry I didn't get here earlier! The Emperor didn't do anything crazy to you, did he?"

Zack didn't want to answer. He just started walking after his brother along with Veemon and Commandramon. "Dude!" Robert was astonished.

Chaun understood, though. The shock was probably affecting both of them. "You don't get it, do you?" he asked.

Edd could understand it too. His deductions seemed to be coming true. Rachelle was mortified. How did Zack know or even care about Eddy and how did Eddy look so similar to him.

"So, anyway, dude, what happened next was that…" Nazz stopped mid-sentence while talking to Ingrid. They were both wondering what was happening. "Oh, hey, Garrett," she greeted the burly, curly-haired guy that was in front of them, "Where did you come from?"

"I got here from the Empire with Zack and May. May's still on Blimpmon, though."

Ed freaked out, yelling: "Kanker!" and running after Zack and Eddy.

Hawkmon didn't understand it. "Honestly, how did I get partnered with that kid?"

Garrett decided to attempt to lighten the mood, but did so in the worst way possible. "So, how's Kevin doing?" Obviously they were all going to have a lot of catching up to do.

Zack followed from a safe distance. Obviously, something caused Eddy to get into a serious state of shock. Eventually, though, Eddy stopped, panting. He looked at his brother, with a disturbed look on his face. "How the heck aren't you tired?"

"I have good stamina from all that cardio my dad made me do to lose weight. Haven't quite gotten there, though."

Eddy looked down. "You were joking, right?"

"No, why? My dad's always had a gym membership and he started bringing me along in sixth grade."

"No, I mean about you being Zack."

Zack shook his head. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Zack has a sister."

Zack knew what he was getting at. "So, somehow you know about that kind of stuff and yet you didn't put two and two together. And then when you found out for sure…"

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

Zack was confused Eddy would suggest such a thing.

"Come on, pinch me." Zack did so, pinching Eddy's arm. "Ow!"

"There, you're not dreaming."

Eddy glared at his brother. "I'm in some sort of dream, like that one movie. Maybe Derek kidnapped me somehow and decided to subject me to my worst nightmare. Kick me in the leg."

Zack facepalmed. "What's next? Don't you remember how in that movie the wife committed suicide because she thought she was still dreaming?"

"The guy was still dreaming. He didn't watch his top drop."

"I looked that up on the internet. According to the actors and director, because the father-in-law was there, he wasn't still dreaming. The kids were also older and wearing different clothes."

Eddy chuckled. He was amazed that his brother actually saw the movie Inception. "So, anyway, I've been partners with Zack for a whole year," they heard Veemon say from the distance.

"Wow. I've been with Eddy only a couple months."

Commandramon looked at Eddy. "Is everything alright?" he asked. "Need me to shoot your evil clone?"

Zack laughed at that.

"Um, I think he's serious," Eddy said, causing the laugh to come to a dead halt and making Zack's eyes widen. "And no, don't even joke like that, Commandramon."

"Oh, come on. You want me to do that."

Eddy talked to his brother again. "When we first met, he shot a bird and threatened my friend Double D."

"Wow," Zack shook his head. "How can you handle him?"

Eddy shrugged. "I just can. Set some very clear limits on what he could and couldn't do. Mom and Dad… I mean Doug did the same thing. He couldn't bring his gun anywhere in the house."

"Don't worry about calling our stepdad dad. I call our stepmom mom."

"Now, on to the sister thing…"

"If you're wondering, she's just a half-sister."

"Good. That means she doesn't count."

Zack raised an eyebrow. Honestly, Eddy couldn't be serious. But there he was, walking away with Commandramon close behind. He followed, keeping careful distance so as not to infuriate the one-time short kid. Numerous thoughts ran through his mind, such as when he first found out that he had two brothers…

_Zack was younger then, about eight years old. Back then, he was the same size Eddy was before his growth spurt and he looked like him with the exception of the hair which was still thick. He was also wearing a blue, short-sleeve shirt. They were on a camping trip with some other friends of his and his father's. _

_ His dad was tall, as tall as Eddy's brother with a similar chin, though nowhere near as prominent. He was wearing a green, plaid button-up shirt and had on sunglasses._

_ "So, what today?"_

_ "We're all going to go fishing," the dad said, picking up his fishing pole and putting it over his shoulder and gesturing like crazy. "Father and son, just like it's supposed to be, heh!"_

_ Zack's eyes narrowed in astonishment. He would have rather hung out with Danny or something, but his dad wanted to go fishing._

_ Then again, did his dad ever go fishing with his own dad? Zack doubted it, since he was raised in a Latin American city by a poor family. In fact, his dad learned English using mainly science fiction books from the library along with a pronunciation tape that he used to learn the phonetic alphabet and get rid of his accent._

_ They made it out to the middle of the lake on an old rental boat. The water was pristine and the mountain air cool._

_ Zack was bored. Then again, fishing wasn't fun when he didn't get a bite. He looked at his dad, who was reading a book. Zack had an idea of what it was. His dad brought the novel 'Digital Fortress' with him to read and even though he felt Dan Brown's research was crap, he admitted that the novels were a guilty pleasure because of the clever plotting._

_ "So, dad, when was the last time you went fishing?"_

_ "Just before you were born."_

_ Zack chuckled. "Go with a friend?"_

_ His dad was silent for a few minutes. Zack wondered why he wasn't being his old rowdy South American self. Then again, he wondered why he wanted so badly to take him fishing anyway. _

_He pulled out a familiar black and blue device and messed around with it for a few seconds, desiring to take it apart and possibly replace the battery inside of it, if there was one. Of course, he had a hard time finding a part of it to take apart._

"_Actually…" His dad started to say, sobbing a bit. "I came here with your oldest brother."_

_ That concept, the one of having an older brother hit Zack like a sledgehammer. Of course, Zack knew about his mom, but not about his brothers. "Oldest brother?"_

_"Yeah, tienes dos hermanos. Se fueron con tu mamá un rato después de que naciste." __You__have__two__brothers__. __They left with your mom a little bit after you were born._

_ "Wait, you're joking."_

_ "Me __conoces__. __No bromeo a menos que la situación sea buena para eso." __You know me. I don't joke unless the situation's good for that. "Of course, that's pretty often, but this isn't something to joke about."_

_ "You can't be serious."_

_ "I am. They both live with your mom, wherever she's at. One of them's your identical twin, believe it or not." His dad laughed some crazy laugh that a Latino would make. Of course, the fact that his ancestry was completely European, primarily Spanish and Italian with a little Irish mixed in for good measure, didn't affect it._

_ Still, Zack had a lot to think about. So much, in fact, that he couldn't sleep that night._

Eddy finally walked into a restaurant along with Commandramon. He walked up to the counter. For some reason, the restaurant reminded Zack of a Qdoba or something, mainly serving burritos and whatnot. Giant burritos. And he liked burritos.

Strangely enough, the person putting the burrito together didn't speak a word of English. Instead, Commandramon was the one translating for Eddy. Zack had heard about the training the reptiles got. Training from hell would be an understatement in that case.

"¿Qué quisieras?" the server, a yellow, tentacled Veggimon asked. What would you like? Zack recognized the accent as Argentine.

"Quisiera comer un burrito de queso con frijoles de pinto, bistec, y salsa roja. O, y también guacamole y crema ácida." He ordered a burrito.

"Guacamole cuesta extra. ¿Está bien?"

"Sí."

"Me alegra que hable castellano. El otro muchacho no puede hablar ni una palabra del idioma." I'm glad you speak Spanish. The other boy can't speak a word of the language.

"Eso no me sorpresa. A propósito, es mi hermano." That doesn't surprise me. By the way, he's my brother.

"Sí. Son muy similares." Yes, you're very similar.

Zack turned to Veemon. "Would you like anything?" he asked his partner.

"Nah, I already ate."

Then again, while he was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in his quarters on Blimpmon on the way over, the others did whatever. After paying for his meal using a credit card that his brother gave him, he went over to Eddy's seat.

"You mind if I sit here?" he asked.

Eddy shrugged. "Go ahead."

Suddenly, Ed walked in with Hawkmon. "Eddy!" he exclaimed, walking over to where his friend was and seeing there weren't any seats available at his table, picked up another table and chair and sat down next to Eddy, putting his arm around him.

"This is Ed," Eddy introduced. "And his partner's Hawkmon."

Of course, Zack knew about pretty much the entire team, but he didn't want to say that, so he played along. "Good to meet you. I'm Zack."

"Yeah, you're Eddy's identical evil twin brother. It's just like in the movie 'Attack of the Plant Clones.'"

Zack had a little bit of a belly laugh. Obviously, Ed was smarter than he looked, probably having put most of his energy into geeky pursuits. "Did you ever see Mystery Science Theater 3000?" he asked.

"Yeah. That show was so cool. I like all the movies they showed. The robots were funny too."

Zack laughed at that. "Oh, yeah. My dad torrented all the episodes. He also bought all the DVD sets on Amazon to try and legitimize his collection as much as he could. He loved that show."

"Never saw it," Eddy commented.

"You'd probably like it. Either that or you'd think it was incredibly boring. Most people I know liked the movie better because they felt it was funnier."

Eddy thought about that for a second. "So, Ed, where's everybody else?"

Ed just shrugged. "I don't know. I just came here to get away from the icky Kanker."

Eddy's eyes bugged. "Wait, you mean that you brought the Kankers with you?" he asked Zack, who was confused.

"Just one. She's really nice, though."

Eddy's eyes narrowed. "Which one?"

"May. Marie's still back at the fortress. She kept Damien at bay while we escaped. You should have seen it. He reached Mega."

Eddy was even more shocked. "How?"

"He merged with his partner. Have you ever seen Digimon Tamers?"

Eddy shook his head while Ed spoke. "That's season three. Eddy only watched up to the beginning of season two."

Once Eddy put Jessica's existence in the back of his mind for the moment, his brother didn't seem like that bad of a person. At least he wasn't someone evil like Derek. Still, he had to do something about Jessica.

"Yeah, I saw season two. It was a bit to plot-hole ridden for me, to be honest. I really wish they would have expanded on the Dark Ocean and had far less filler. Not to mention the plot was kind of repetitive with the endless cycle of destroying dark towers, attempting to stop BlackWarGreymon," Eddy's eyes lit up at the name, "destroying dark towers again, and all that stuff. Not to mention, Daisuke didn't really lead the team."

"He had the goggles, didn't he?" Ed asked, somehow figuring out that Daisuke was Davis. He remembered it from reading character profiles.

"Maybe, but at the same time, Takeru was the one in charge. Also, Taichi really shouldn't have given him those goggles. The only exception was the finale."  
"Yeah, what happened?"

"He somehow managed to evade the final boss's attack that put everyone else in a state where they envisioned their greatest desires coming true, even though his greatest desire was to defeat him."

"What the-? How does that make any sense?"

Zack shrugged. "Blame it on the writing staff. There were some pretty cool things like the Dark Ocean too that didn't end up showing up again." Eddy had a worried look on his face as he ate some more of his burrito. "What is it?"

"A friend of mine got stuck in the Dark Ocean."

Zack's eyes grew wide. "Whoa, dude, I'm sorry."

"We'll find a way back for him. I know we will."

Zack looked down at his uneaten food for a second before biting into it himself.

"Yeah, we've only been friends for a little bit, about a year. His name is Kevin."

Zack recognized the name from the stories that Marie told the group. "Kevin, eh? I think I heard about him. Marie said that she and her sisters tied him to the wheel of a tractor and spun it around while asking questions like 'what color is your underwear?'"

Eddy laughed at that one after swallowing his food. "Oh, yeah, I remember. Ed, Double D and I ended up rescuing him. That was back when we were still enemies, though, so he repaid us by calling us dorks."

"Well, she didn't tell us about that. When did you guys become friends?" Zack asked.

"When Kevin saw Eddy get beat up by his evil brother," Ed replied, since Eddy was still chewing on his food.

"Yeah, that was the start," Eddy said. "We really became friends, though, when this guy called the Gourd attacked. It was actually this weird kid in the cul-de-sac who was friends with a piece of wood."  
"Was his name Jonny?" Zack asked.

"Yeah. He's in the Digital World, isn't he?"

Zack nodded. "Yeah. He ended up having a bit of a breakdown on the way back from our last mission. You see, the only way he could get to the Perfect level was by hacked evolution. Unfortunately, that tends to degrade a Digimon's data over time, sometimes causing dark evolutions without negative emotions. This in turn causes negative emotions in the tamer because of the connection with their Digimon at high levels such as that."

"Nuts." Eddy adjusted his goggles a little bit. "So, how'd you find these goggles?"

Zack looked at them and smiled. "Yeah… I got those several years ago…"

_Zack found himself in a bind. There was a group of bullies ganging up on his sister and he had to do something about it. He was in fifth grade at the time, but was taller than Eddy was before his growth spurt. "Leave her alone!" he yelled. The group of bullies looked at him with disdain._

"_Oh, please, we've got to teach this brat a lesson in respect!" said one, a tall, bulky Mexican._

"_Yeah? Well, she's a girl. You're not supposed to hit girls."_

"_So. This girl's such a tomboy that she could easily pass as a boy!" another one said. He had blond hair._

"_I'm her older brother. I can tell my parents and they'll deal with her."_

"_Zack!" Jessica exclaimed. "I can take these idiots on."_

"_No you can't. You're outnumbered." Zack ran toward the others, who just struck him in the face. Jessica, seeing a way out just ran off._

"_See you at home, bro!" she yelled._

"_Oh, is the big brother taking care of his wittle sister?" the Mexican guy asked before punching Zack in the gut. "Hahaha!"_

_That's when Zack's temper broke loose. He tore into the Meixan like you wouldn't believe, though at the same time aiming for the gut. Eventually, though, the faculty intervened._

_A few minutes later, while waiting in the office for his stepmother to come get him, he pulled out his digivice and examined it out of the view of the receptionist. No matter what he tried, he still couldn't open the thing up. Of course, Garrett managed to open it years later using digital world technology, but nothing Zack tried worked._

_Strangely enough, the thing was on now for some reason. That didn't happen before._

_Suddenly the door opened and a talk, dark-haired man wearing a flat-cap hat, grey pants and a plaid, red jacket walked in. "Oh, you must be the boy's father?" the receptionist said._

"_Huh, I ain't got any kids." Zack looked at the man. He looked familiar, but Zack couldn't pinpoint it. Not to mention, it was strange that the receptionist thought he was his father._

_Then Zack saw it. The man was holding a black and red digivice, much like his. "Hey, you've got one of those, too, huh?" Zack asked, causing the man to turn around._

"_What are you talking about, pipsqueak?" the man asked, definitely not in a good mood. Then he saw the digivice and smiled. "Oh, I see. You're a Chosen, too, eh? You look like you could be related to me, chump."_

"_My name is Zack."_

"_Don't know anyone by that name. I had a little bro named Clayton, but he's long gone."_

_Zack looked at the man in shock. _Could it be? _"Clayton's actually my first name."_

_If Zack was surprised, his brother was all the more surprised. "Oh, man, you've gotta be kidding me! Little bro! Here I thought you were dead!"_

_Zack really wasn't expecting this. "So, what are you here for?" his older brother asked._

"_Well, I'm on the verge of getting suspended."_

"_Ah, you're as much of a trouble maker as Eddy, I see."_

"_You're Derek, right?"_

"_Yeah." Derek turned to the receptionist, who apparently wasn't paying any attention and said: "You know lady, I'm actually his older brother Derek. I'm sure I'm on record." The woman typed in a few buttons._

"_Yeah, you are."_

"_Well, it turns out that our parents wanted me to pick him up."_

_The woman was surprised, wondering why the man didn't say so before. "Okay, he's free to go."_

_The man turned to his brother. "Come on, pipsqueak. Time's a-wasting." Zack didn't know how to react. He followed his brother, figuring that in the worst-case scenario, he'd attack him like the kids who were picking on Jessica. As soon as they walked out, Derek started making small talk. "So, where do you want to go, pipsqueak?"  
"Uh, I don't know."_

"_It better be cheap, kid. I don't have a lot of money." Derek got on top of a motorcycle. "Just hop on, bro."_

_Zack did so. "How about this sushi bar I saw in the middle of town on the way over here? Maybe we can talk, get to know each other a bit. It's not every day that I meet a dead relative."_

_Zack was uneasy, but oh well. "You will drop me off at my house, right?"_

"_Yeah, just don't expect me to come and visit Dad or anything."_

"Wait, so you went with our bro and he didn't treat you like dirt?" Eddy exclaimed.

"No, he was actually nice for once," Zack replied. "Especially compared to my time spent with him in the Digital World."

_The two talked for over an hour. Zack never had sushi up to that point, but he was willing to try it and he, surprisingly enough, liked it. "So, kid, what do you want to do?" Derek asked._

"_I don't know. Hey, why don't you come to the house and meet everyone?"_

"_Are you kidding me? I'd probably stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, with what you told me about everything, I don't know… I guess I'm not ready to meet our stepmom. I'd probably end up hating her."_

_Zack chuckled. "You'd like her. She's a really nice lady."_

_Derek just shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. So, how long ago did you find out that she wasn't your real mom?"_

"_Uh, I kind of knew it all along. My dad always tries to tell me the truth, so I was told that she was my stepmom, and she admitted it too. Most people out of the family don't know, but that's not that's just 'cause they automatically assume."_

"_Dad always tells you the truth, eh? What about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy?"_

"_Um, I never believed in those, either."_

"_So, what's your partner?"_

"_My partner?"_

"_You know, the reason you got that digivice?"  
"Uh, I don't know. Yours?"_

"_I had one, but he turned back into an egg when my so-called friend Eric decided to delete him. It was an Agumon."_

_Zack didn't get it. Did his brother actually believe in Digimon? "That sucks. Where is it now?"_

_Derek pulled his backpack around and pulled out an egg. "Right here." Zack tapped the side of the egg. It seemed hollow. "I keep on hoping that someday it'll hatch, but that hasn't happened yet. Chances are that when it does, I won't be able to go to Mega anymore though, which kind of sucks. I should tell you about my trip to the digital world."_

"_Sure."_

_Later on, Derek dropped Zack off at his house. "Well, see you later. Oh, and Zack, one last thing."_

"_Yeah?" Zack asked as he got off the bike. Derek pulled out a couple of goggles and put them on his brother's head. "I think you'd make a better leader than Eddy, so take them, please."_

"_You sure?"_

"_Positive."_

_Zack smiled. "Thanks bro," he said._

"_Alright, pipsqueak! Sayonara!" his brother waved while pressing on the gas on the old motorbike._

"I don't know how I survived, either."

"Yeah, really. Why didn't he kidnap you?"

Zack shrugged. "Good question, bro. Maybe he isn't as evil as he tries to be. Maybe what I saw of him that day was his good side. I didn't tell him about Jessica, just so you know."

"Probably a good thing. I don't know how he'd react."

"He'd probably hunt her down and…" Commandramon said before getting interrupted.

"Commandramon! Don't say that!" Zack snapped.

"Just saying."

"Anyway, if you ever run into Derek, don't tell him we've got a sister, okay?"  
"Got it," Eddy said, though still not liking the idea of having _yet another_ sibling. Then again, he wondered if she really counted, having a different mother and all. Of course, Zack thought she did.

Then again, Zack didn't have to live with Derek and deal with those years of torture.

Zack doesn't know what he dealt with.

"Um, Eddy, is everything alright?" Zack asked, causing Eddy to snap out of his reverie. It turned out that he was starting to grimace, shake and clench his fists.

"You don't know what it was like living with bro."

Zack knew what he was getting at. At that moment, everyone walked into the burrito joint. "Hey, there you are!" Robert yelled, running up to the table.

"Yeah, dude!" Nazz shouted. "We were looking all over for you."

"What is it?" Eddy asked, adjusting his goggles."

A lone voice in the back of the crowd answered. "Duskmon's back," Daniel said.

A/N: You have an idea of what's happening next chapter: Duskmon's back. That's basically the beginning of the end for this arc. The next chapter is entitled: Beast of Darkness. Hehehe…

Also, I just had to put in the comment about the kids' friendship, namely Eddy and Kevin, really getting strong because of the Gourd. Really, I'm tired of so many stories where they're still enemies in high school. It comes into play in a later arc, by the way.


	25. The Beast of Darkness

Chapter 25: The Beast of Darkness

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

Duskmon stood in front of his master, AncientWisemon. The mysterious Digimon who ruled this section of the digital world was actually a part of the order that Wisemon hails from, having joined it because of said Digimon's legacy, but ultimately getting expelled from it for conspiring against Yggdrasil. He was known as the Apostate to those in the order, and for good reason for he went straight to violating the one of the order's ideals: that of political neutrality.

Since then, he has been steadily violating more of the order's ideals, even going as far as having the army of El País Occidental go after the order. In response, the order changed the location of the island that they were on and renamed it. However, that wasn't important at the time. "Lo fallecí." [I failed you.]

"Yes you did. I know exactly what the problem was though: you haven't let go of your human side yet."

Duskmon looked up at his master. "Pero, señor, Usted sabe que…" [But, sir, you know that…]

"I know what?" AncientWisemon could speak English quite well, having had the digital world's languages downloaded into him. "You only need to use the Beast Spirit. You remember how to use that, right?"

"I know… but my son! He's among the Tamers!"

"So? The Tamers are a threat to the Digital World! You've seen what they did to the one-time Machine Empire, now named the pathetic Guevara Empire! The only reason I accepted you was because you didn't enslave a Digimon. Instead, you became one! Now, if you're truly an asset to this world and to the Triple Alliance, you will exterminate the Tamers."

"How could I? They're kids." Suddenly, an energy field of darkness appeared around both AncientWisemon and Duskmon. Duskmon felt his grasp on reality loosen and then fall away.

Now Duskmon was ready for action.

* * *

"He's back?" Eddy exclaimed disturbing the patrons at the restaurant they were in. "When the heck did that happen?"

"Just a little bit ago," Daniel explained. "Right now, some of our Digimon are engaging him. Zack, can you get Veemon to the Perfect Level?"

"You read the report on our last mission. I do have an idea that might work, though. Let's get to it."

Eddy was ready to get it over with himself. It was nightfall, much like the other time they took on Duskmon, and if Eddy was right, that meant they were at a disadvantage. "Ready Commandramon?" he asked.

"When am I not?" the reptile asked, patting his gun.

"That's what I like to hear." They walked toward the door just as Eddy felt his digivice vibrate. "What the-?" He pulled it out of his pocket and checked it.

"Who is it, Eddy?" Edd asked.

Eddy looked at the device. "It's Wisemon of all people. He says he wants me to meet him at the Tamers' Monument and that I should bring Ingrid while I'm at it."

"Wisemon?" Edd inquired.

"I know him," Kudamon said from around Edd's neck. "He's a member of an ancient order dedicated to the peace of the Digital World. It is said that his order chose the chosen and developed the various models of digivice used in this world."

That solved one problem Zack had: that of potentially activating another Dark Evolution by having Eddy let his Digimon go to Perfect. "Why don't you go with her, Eddy? There's more than enough of us to take on Duskmon," he suggested.

Eddy nodded. "Where's Ingrid, anyway?" he asked.

"Just outside. Is she the blonde chick?"

"Nope, she the kind of gothic but not girl."

"Oh, her, the one with the heavy eye shadow." For some reason, the first thing Zack looks at on girls is their eyes. Then he checks out the rest of them. He goes crazy over girls with striking eyes and nice bodies and almost went crazy thinking about it. Nazz in particular was one he had to divert his eyes from for various reasons.

"Hey, Ed!" Eddy called out to his friend. "You mind giving us a ride with Aquilamon?"

"Sure can do, Eddy. Is that alright with you my little buddy?" Ed asked Hawkmon, who was grateful for being asked permission.

"Why sure. It doesn't sound like a bad idea if I say so myself. I'm not much of a fighter, anyway," Hawkmon responded.

"Alright, let's go!" Eddy exclaimed, running out of the restaurant with Commandramon, who cautioned him.

"What if this Wisemon fellow is a rogue and this turns out to be a trap?" Commandramon asks.

"Easy, Tankdramon and Aquilamon will kick his butt!" Eddy exclaimed loudly, causing Zack to almost trip in response.

* * *

They didn't like having to hold off the enemy while their tamers got some of their star players, but they did. They had no other choice. None of them were at the Perfect Level yet, since they couldn't get to that level without their tamers around, but through teamwork and perseverance, they could at least prevent Duskmon from wiping them out.

Mostly…

Reppamon ran forward, attacking with its tail while Togemon shot needles at the black specter. Unfortunately, the attacks just bounced off the enemy Digimon's armor. Meanwhile, on the other side, Leomon, Waspmon and Pidmon attacked him from the other side, Pidmon launching his Fire Feathers attack while Waspmon launched a projectile. Leomon simply used his Beast King Fist. Again, they simply bounced off.

Kyubimon and Galgomon joined Reppamon's squad. "How is he taking our shots?" Galgomon asked.

"Too well," Reppamon said. "Where is Stingmon?"

"He's joining Leomon's group. We're trying to balance the sides out so that he doesn't find a weak point. It is strange fighting without our Tamers around."

"That it is."

Soon afterwards, though, the Tamers all showed up with Veemon. "Alright, Veemon! Time to show your stuff!" Zack exclaimed.

Veemon nodded. "Heck, yeah!"

Edd examined the situation. Obviously, more than just Veedramon was going to be needed. The whole situation seemed familiar, somehow, as if he had known that this battle was going to come, eventually. "We're going to be in need of Perfect level Digimon, if my analysis is correct," he told the group.

"Yeah, I think everyone realizes that, dude," Nazz said. Like everybody, she was on the edge. The battle had come unexpectedly and they weren't exactly ready. Viximon could barely evolve to Renamon and going further and becoming Kyubimon was even more of a stretch, but she did it. It was now only a question of how long she would last.

Edd watched Zack as he pulled out two cards from the deck attached to his waist. Edd looked closely. _Are those… Digimentals?_ Edd had never once thought of combining two Digimentals at once, but maybe it would work. Still, there was absolutely nothing in canon that suggested that they would or that even remotely hinted at what one would get if they performed that type of Armor Evolution.

Now, though, they could see what happens.

Zack held the cards out in front of his face and performed a slash, closing his eyes for a second as he slid both cards horizontally through his black and blue digivice. "Card Slash! Double Armor Evolution!"

**DOUBLE ARMOR EVOLUTION _**

"Veemon, Double Armor Digivolve to…"

Veemon's body was elongated while still bipedal while black and red armor attached to his body, fiery red armor on his arms and legs while the black armor attached to his chest, his feet and his hands. Finally, to finish the design were two cannons that attached to his hips, wings on his back, and a lightning bolt that appeared on top of his helmet that looked much like the helmet of his namesake.

"BlastPaildramon!" The appearance of such a Digimon surprised the entire team.

"Good lord! How does something like this even exist?" Edd asked.

"Well, we never knew whether the Armor level was possible through Card Slash until we tried. It was in a Dark Ocean infested area on the south side of Server where I first experimented with it."

"How does that affect evolution?" Edd asked.

"Simple, the Dark Ocean is infested with things called either Control Spires or Dark Towers, depending on what version of the Anime you prefer. These towers are apparently the essence of Deep Ones who sacrificed themselves to the service of Dagomon."

Edd shivered at the thought of the Digimon that had Kevin ensnared and apparently held another unknown Tamer.

"Plasma Cannon!" BlastPaildramon shouted, shooting at Duskmon blue beams of energy wrapped with coiled purple energy from the cannons at his hips. Duskmon was hit head on, receiving cracks in his armor. If the Armor level was normally just a little bit below the Adult level in strength, Fusion Armors were just a bit below Perfect.

Unfortunately, though, Duskmon kept on charging forward. He eventually came face to face with Stingmon who already had his arm blades extended and who was automatically blocked by Duskmon.

"Oh, you again? Didn't you learn from last time?" Duskmon said. His voice was huskier and more frightening than before, possibly from AncientWisemon's influence.

"Attack!" Stingmon yelled before Duskmon was barraged by a number of attacks from the other Digimon, a few of which had energy that seeped through the cracks on Duskmon's armor, damaging him slightly.

Yet, all that did was cause him to jump back and then, as quickly as he could, move behind Stingmon, slicing him across the back, spraying data in his own face.

"Stingmon!" Chaun yelled as his Digimon reverted.

_Oh no… This is turning out badly,_ Daniel though, touching his crest, which glowed slightly.

"Is something wrong, Daniel?" Edd asked.

"No… it's nothing. Well, not entirely." Edd's eyes widened. "You see, sometimes I worry that I didn't get the right crest. I've never exactly been what could be considered Reliable. Sometimes, I wonder if whoever assigned the crests didn't actually know anything about us."

"I know what you mean." Edd looked down. "Many times I've wondered how I could have gotten the crest of Courage, considering how I've never been what I would call courageous. I've even pondered how I'm the only one left that hasn't gotten to the next level."

"Wasn't courage originally Eddy's brother's crest?" Daniel asked.

"That it was. I've also wondered why Eddy didn't just inherit the crest himself."

"How did Eddy get kindness in the first place?"

"He found it in a box that used to be in his brother's room. It was where he found a number of cards as well as a card scanner that became part of his digivice."

"Did he know who had it before him?"

"No… and I've been trying to figure it out myself. Perhaps Eddy has a connection, familial or otherwise, with the almost mythical First Tamer."

"Somehow that wouldn't surprise me. As far as I know, though, Zack doesn't have any more missing relatives, so maybe family ties could be marked off. Also, I did some work to figure out when the Tamer came here and came up with the late 1990s."

Daniel walked up to Zack. "Hey, Zack, you don't have any relatives that could be the First Tamer or anything, right?"

Zack looked at Daniel strangely. "Okay, we're in the middle of a battle and you have to ask that… As far as I know, no. And didn't the First Tamer get stuck in the Dark Ocean or something?"

"Yeah… That's what I hear."

Zack's attention immediately fixed itself back on the battle. "Get him, BlastPaildramon!"

Soon, though, the battle took an even darker turn when Duskmon struck Kyubimon, knocking off several of her tails and forcing devolution back to Viximon. Then BlastPaildramon shot him again before he could go for a killing stroke, knocking him backwards. The cracks were becoming even more pronounced now and a piece of armor fell off.

"Guys, there's a weak spot!" Zack yelled.

"Everyone, get him all at once! We need to take advantage of this development!" Edd shouted.

Each of the Digimon shot at the part of Duskmon's chest where the armor was missing, damaging him heavily. Duskmon hunched over.

"Surrender now, or else," BlastPaildramon said, pointing his guns at Duskmon.

"You think I can be defeated that easily?" he asked, his voice becoming even more disturbing as his body glowed purple and black. "Slide Evolution!" Duskmon turned into an ugly, decaying black and purple bird.

Edd looked at his digivice and recognized the name.

Velgmon…

* * *

"So, why do you think this Wisemon character wants me to come along?" Ingrid asked Eddy while riding on the back of Aquilamon with Ed and Commandramon.

"Maybe he's gonna give you a partner. I mean, seriously, you've been doing nothing since we got here!" Eddy exclaimed.

"Yeah, you freeloader," Ed taunted.

"Forget I asked," Ingrid responded.

"Hey, what do you think Ingrid's gonna get?" Ed asked.

"Who knows! Maybe Wisemon's going to be her partner," Eddy said in response.

Ingrid didn't know what Wisemon was except from a description of him given to the other part of the team by Daniel. Still, he did not sound like the stereotypical partner Digimon. Chances were that he was going to give her a Child-level like all the other kids.

Of course, there were exceptions: Zack and his sister's Digimon normally stayed at the Adult Level, and so did Daniel's since evolving him to Pidmon for the first time. And then there's the interesting case of Eddy's Digimon Commandramon who remained as Sealsdramon for longer periods of time than normal. As far as she knew, Digimon had to absorb large amounts of data in order to stay at such forms and yet, at the same time, Commandramon hadn't absorbed that much data if any.

Eventually, they landed. "Well, this is the place! Ed, Chaun and I came here yesterday and it reacted to my green digivice," he said. Of course, now he knew for the most part what the statues represented. Still, one thing bothered him: what does Examon have to do with him and his siblings?

"There may be a reason for that," Eddy heard a voice say from up ahead. Walking out from behind one of the statues was Wisemon. "Right now, the identity of the original Tamer is not important, but you will need him once you go back to the Human World."

"Yeah! Why don't you tell me now, hoodie?" Eddy exclaimed.

"Because the information on that person is too much for you to handle."

"So what? Do I have yet another brother?" Eddy asked.

"No, thank Yggdrasil."

"Oh, and another thing: you said that I would need him in the human world. That Jijimon guy said that he was stuck in the Dark Ocean!"

"Yes, he is. Due to a malfunction of his digivice, however, he is in the real world as well. But, that is not why I'm here. I bade you to listen."

"Whatever that means."

"It is foretold that in the next couple of days your brother's troops will arrive to take either you or Zack to the Imperial Fortress. When that happens, you will have to surrender yourself."

The shock on the eyes of the kids that were gathered there was apparent. "Crackers," was Ingrid's response.

"Oh, no, not Eddy!" Ed exclaimed, hugging his fat friend who was just as shocked.

"What good is that gonna do?" Eddy asked.

"Simple, it will be your ticket to your world."

"Wait, so my brother got the portal up and working again?" Eddy asked.

"No, the portal in question was built by Mugendramon's troops so that he could conquer the human world after conquering this world. His plans never came to fruition as you well know because your brother defeated him as BlackWarGreymon. You will see the way to your world once you get to that point and receive instructions as to what to do."

The three let that all sink in. Ingrid didn't know Eddy that well, but she heard a bit about what he went through while living with his brother. The guy was a sick, twisted individual from what she knew.

"Certainly there must be another way," she told Wisemon.

"There is more to this that I have not told you," Wisemon replied. "Now, about you: what are you doing here?"

"What?"

"What are you doing here? You are in a world that is on the verge of global war and you do not even have a partner Digimon."

"I was told to come here by my superior," Ingrid's thoughts turned to a certain Jr. Commissioner Vallejo. "Believe me, if it was me, I would have stayed. I'm missing far too many days of school."

"On the contrary, you have not missed any. Scarcely ten minutes have passed in your world since you have come here."

Ingrid was shocked. "How?"

"A little thing called Time Dilation. Many Digital Worlds can be set up to go at a faster speed than the Human World they're connected to. Have you ever heard of Brane Theory?"

"As a matter of fact, I have. I am wondering, though, how did these myriad alternate realities come into existence?"

"Boring! I'm sorry, but only Double D would care about any of that," Eddy exclaimed. "Besides, the others are taking on Duskmon while we're here talking!"

"In a way, he is right, Ingrid. Now to the point: are you going to stay here or are you going to go home? It will not be easy either way. We have received reports that Somnus has captured your friends Horatio and Cornelius."

Ingrid's eyes widened. "Crackers. I'll stay, then."

"If that is the case, you are going to have to have a Digimon partner."

"Alright, I'll do it. Just tell me what I'll get."

"You can come out now."

Out from behind the statue of the mystery Digimon came a small, black imp with a mask colored in red and green eyes and a massive smile.

"So, this is who you're gonna give to me, eh? Honestly, how do you know she's going to be any better than the last idiot I was partnered with?"

Ingrid was taken aback by her partner's demeanor. He seemed pessimistic.

"Unlike your previous partner, I have been watching this girl," he told the diminutive imp. The one thought that ran through Ingrid's head was that his head was bigger than the rest of his body. "Ingrid Third, this is Dracmon."

Ingrid walked up to the Digimon and held out her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

The Digimon didn't respond in kind. "Well, at least she acts like she likes me, unlike that idiot David. I hope he gets his just rewards after all this is done for throwing me off the side of a cliff. Doesn't he know that that can kill me? Sheesh!"

Dracmon was definitely embittered by the whole situation. Of course, the mystery of who this David person was intrigued her. "I'm sorry about your former Tamer. I'll try my best to be a far better person than he was."

"That ain't hard, girl. What's your name, Ivana or something?"

"Ingrid."

That was when Dracmon shook her hand. "Okay, Ingrid! Just no funny business or I'll sneak into your room in the middle of the night and suck your blood dry! Got it?"

Ingrid didn't know how this was going to turn out. "Before you go, Ingrid," Wisemon said, "you may need this." Wisemon handed the girl a purple digivice with orange trim. The model was a bit different than the ones that the rest of the team had, having edges that weren't smooth. The digivice was boxier because of that. "I am quite sure you already know some of the basic functions of the device, so I will not elaborate on them at this time."

Ingrid nodded. "So, who was David?"

"He was a seventeen-year-old who was thrust into the digital world by his father. Unfortunately, he was already slightly warped and that through him over the edge."

"In my case, literally," Dracomon commented. "Believe me: you don't want to go there."

"Eventually, he decided to take on a new identity and leave his brother and sister behind, opting to go to Server continent. However, he still has contact with his father and he is doing some of his bidding."

Eddy was trying to put two and two together, but he couldn't. Then it hit him. "No…"

"You are correct Eddy and because of him, your brother is in danger. He has far too much power at his disposal and he plans to use it, being one of only a handful of Tamers in this reality that can reach the Ultimate or Mega Level. He even has a new partner that's far deadlier than most, being one of the few Digimon with a form past Mega."

Eddy knew who he was. It all made sense now. However, that confrontation was for another day. Now, however, he had Duskmon to deal with.

It was all just one step at a time.

* * *

A/N: I hope you didn't think I was jumping the shark by including the idea I had about armor digivolution in this chapter. Heck, it'll bite Zack in the rear end next chapter when Commandramon becomes Sealsdramon.


	26. The Crest of Courage

Chapter 26: The Crest of Courage

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

Eddy was uneasy on the back of Aquilamon. The revelation about what he was going to have to do disturbed him to no end. He wasn't ready to face his brother, not when he had so many other things to take care of, namely his other brother.

His thoughts shifted somewhere else when Aquilamon was bombarded with several shuriken. "Oh, no! Not you!" Aquilamon landed down on the ground. It seemed that they were going to have to fight something a little bit earlier than they thought.

"I'm fine. These just hurt!" The shuriken were lodged in his wing and it was a miracle that they were able to land in the first place.

"Ready, Commandramon?" Eddy asked his Digimon who nodded.

"How about you, Dracmon?" Ingrid asked.

"Are you kidding me? I get to digivolve! How can I not be ready for that?" the small vampire shouted.

**"Commandramon evolve! Sealsdramon!"**

**"Dracmon evolve!"** Dracmon's new form was that of a pale wolf with a purple mask covering his eyes. **"… Sangloupmon!"**

"Wow, that's a surprising new form," Ingrid said.

Numerous round ninja Digimon as well as several humanoids appeared. They were recognized as Igamon, Kougamon and Shurimon.

* * *

Unfortunately, Commandramon's evolution to Sealsdramon was what Zack didn't want. Just after that evolution on the other side of the city, BlastPaildramon's armor cracked and shined from the inside out.

"BlastPaildramon, Slide Evolution… Veedramon!"

Zack kept himself from swearing, simply saying "Oh," and than pausing for a second to finish the utterance up with "…shoot!"

This was definitely not going as planned. Now, the only way to combat Velgmon was to go to the Perfect Level, something that Zack hadn't been able to do successfully ever since…

The vision of that horrify, rotting dragon that Veedramon had become flashed through Zack's mind. A Dark Evolution wasn't something to be taken lightly, especially since it took the combined forces of GrapLeomon, Dorugamon and Waspmon to defeat him.

"Zack…" Rachelle called to him from behind him. "What's…"

"I'm scared." He was visibly shaking. Veedramon was looking directly at Velgmon. After a couple of seconds, the Adult-level shot a blue arrow at the vulture.

Velgmon reminded Zack too much of MortisVeedramon. Now several Digimon: Galgomon, Leomon and Waspmon, were underneath a circle on the ground. "Zone Deleter!" Velgmon yelled, causing the three Digimon to be affected by a massive ball. When the attack was done and over with, the Digimon were gone, much to the shock of everyone watching.

May saw it with her own eyes and just broke down, falling to her knees. With everything that happened, from Lee's villainy to Marie sacrificing herself. Times like that were when she really wished that Ed was there to comfort her, to hold her.

Garrett just looked on in fear. He was just about to activate Matrix Evolution but then this happened, even producing a blue card to do so. It brought back memories, memories of his dealings with Eddy's older brother and his abuses along with memories of when his time in the Urban Rangers had come to an abrupt end due to his attempt at getting the 'Hairy Chest of Resilience Badge'. He felt the horror at the thought of his partner gone and how it was the latest in a series of horrible events.

He felt energy burst through his body. Anger had caused it and for good reason. The orange energy flowed through his digivice and nearly overcharged it, causing Velgmon to get hit and damaged somewhat, leaving enough time for the digi-eggs to reform.

Robert felt a slight sigh of relief upon seeing that. He didn't feel anger, just regret that he didn't attempt to digivolve his Digimon to the perfect level sooner. Unfortunately, it was far too dangerous for their Tamers to go in and get them from off the roof of that building and because of Robert's helplessness; he had to rely on everyone else. He had to have faith in his friends.

Zack's fear was paralyzing him and his Digimon felt it too. He collapsed onto his knees and grabbed onto his hair with his hands. Veedramon, looking at his partner like that, realized that he had to fight for him. "V-breath Arrow!" he yelled, shooting another arrow at Velgmon, who was barely even scratched by the attack.

Zack eased up a little bit when he felt arms around him from behind, along with words whispered into his ear: "Don't worry, Zack. Everything will be okay." It was Rachelle.

Daniel looked at them. He had to help them out. For some reason, at the end of the last battle with this guy, he flinched at the mention of his name and Daniel had to find out why.

He had to be trustworthy, reliable. He felt his crest glow and then shine. He had forgiven Zack for ratting him out years ago and he wanted to be a better friend now, even though he didn't know where his future was leading. Pidmon started to glow along with the crest.

"Ready, Pidmon?" he asked his partner.

"Yes!" A glow enveloped the Digimon.

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

** "Pidmon Super Evolve! HolyAngemon!"**

"Let's change the tide of this fight completely!" Daniel cheered his Digimon on.

HolyAngemon gave a nod and extended his sword for a fight against the massive bird that faced him.

Nazz realized that it was going to be now or never as far as getting her Digimon to the perfect level. She sincerely wanted to help her friends and because of that, her crest glowed with green light. "Go save them," she told Togemon, even thought the giant cactus wouldn't hear her.

Togemon felt pure energy run through her body and the force of Digivolution flowed through her.

"**Togemon Super Evolve… Lillymon!"**

Edd was the same way, clenching his digivice but not moving. His first thoughts were to run away and order a withdrawal, but after seeing Zack's breakdown, he realized he needed to stay.

He still wished that Eddy would show up.

After a short bit, the guy did, on the back of a Digimon Edd had never seen before, seated behind Ingrid. Sealsdramon was close behind and Aquilamon limped out from behind a building with Ed next to it before devolving back into Hawkmon and collapsing.

Eddy got off of Sangloupmon while Sealsdramon shot off a few knives at a pair of Igamon that just wouldn't quit.

"Eddy! Thank heavens you're all right."

Eddy smirked a little bit. "He doesn't look it though. You don't look like you're doing well either." The sight of this mass defeat was enough to put Eddy on edge. They were obviously losing.

"Eddy!" Eddy noticed Daniel walking toward him. "I'm going to try to keep this guy at bay. Take everyone and get out of here!"

"But…"  
"I'll be fine!"

Edd disagreed. "No you won't! That Digimon that you're going up against has power bordering on the Mega level. In fact, on the anime, it took two Digimon with strength proportional to that of a Mega to defeat him."

"I'll stay too, you guys!" Nazz said. "I got Lillymon helping and if our Digimon get defeated, I can always drag Daniel out of the way."

"I can help out, too," Ingrid said. Garrett was right next to her.

"I was about to evolve Leomon into GrapLeomon when he was defeated. Still, I managed to form a blue card and I gave it to Ingrid to use."

"Still, it's a suicide mission!" Edd exclaimed.

"No one has love greater than the one who sacrifices himself for his friends," Daniel said, "I know that's not an exact quote, but it still got the point across. I know I haven't been that great of a friend, but now I have the chance to change things."

It all came to Edd quickly. He remembered the dream he had where they were fighting a Digimon that he vaguely remembered as Tactimon. Well, it sure wasn't the similar looking Musyamon which may or may not be the Digimon's Adult form. He remembered that his Digimon mentioned a fight between HolyAngemon and another Digimon: Velgmon and the admonition to show courage, just before Tactimon defeated Imperialdramon and Zack collapsed.

_"Show courage," Reppamon said._

"I can't," Edd replied out loud.

"What?" Eddy asked.

"I can't show courage. I never have. Ever since that incident from when I was a little kid that left my face in a macabre jumble of scar tissue, I've never once got out of bounds except for the occasional scam. I'm just not the type."

Eddy looked dumbstruck. "What the heck are you talking about?"

"I'm just not courageous, Eddy. I'd do much better on the sidelines as a strategist than what I'm doing now."

Edd felt a fist drive itself into his face. It was Eddy. Ed was also looking at him angrily. "That's the stupidest thing you ever said, Double D! Here, I thought you were the smart one!" Eddy yelled.

"Eddy! What are you talking about! You know that my intelligence has nothing to do with a display of valor."

"He's got a point," Daniel said, agreeing with Edd a little bit. He remembered his own lack of courage, despite being an above average student. He had accepted a cigarette because he was scared that his 'friends' would make fun of him for rejecting it. Thankfully Zack wasn't around at the time, though he did find out later. Daniel's actions back then were the start of a downward spiral that led to him getting kicked out of the academy and costing him his friendship with Zack and his parents' trust.

"Double D, don't you remember Eddy's brother?" Ed asked. "And the whale-trailer and how you stood up to him."

"Yeah," Eddy said. "You practically saved my life back there, sockhead, just by giving my bro a stupid lecture!"

Edd remembered that. "But that's different. Your brother wasn't a Digimon."

"So…" The source of this objection came from a surprising place, Zack, whose face was completely covered in tears. "That doesn't mean anything! Derek had that BlackAgumon with him for who knows how long, probably since he came to the digital world the first time! If he really wanted to, he could have unleashed the thing on you guys. Heck, I'm amazed it didn't do anything to you guys when you fought him. Man, you know what? Compared to my issues with getting Veedramon to the Ultimate level, yours are nothing! Okay, you can't show courage? Just figure out how!"

Edd knew that it wasn't as simple as that. Still, considering everything that they talked about, he realized he had to at least try something.

Edd ran over to the spot where Reppamon was dodging shots from Velgmon.

"You know, I think he'll need back-up anyway," Ingrid said, sliding Garrett's blue card through her digivice.

Eddy nodded. "Yeah, sounds like a plan! Ready Sealsdramon?"

"When am I not?" the reptilian mercenary replied.

"Eddy! We can't do that? What if…" Zack started to speak.

"You still afraid? Here I thought you had the crest of Miracles. Well, believe in one: me!" Eddy exclaimed. "Hey, if Veedramon dark-digivolves, I'll just have Tankdramon devolve."

Zack didn't like it one bit. Rachelle, on the other hand supported Eddy. "I hate to say it, but Eddy's right."

Zack nodded. "Alright. Eddy, you better not fail me this time. You know how much is at stake."

"Hey, where's the fun when you can't take risks?" the goggle-wearing boy asked, smiling.

**"Sangloupmon evolve… Matadormon!"**

** "Sealsdramon super evolve… Tankdramon!"**

** "Veedramon super evolve… AeroVeedramon!"**

Matadormon's form was that of a red cloaked vampire with swords protruding out of his sleeves. AeroVeedramon looked much like Veedramon, but with a more streamlined appearance and massive wings.

"Eddy! You were right!" Zack exclaimed.

"Hey, I'm not smart but I'm not stupid," Eddy responded. "Now, look, in a few seconds, it's going to be six on one."

"Now, look, we're going to finish this battle one way or another. Are you ready?" Edd asked his partner, an orange glow starting to come from the crest.

"Absolutely." Edd had confidence in his Digimon's abilities. There was no way that he was going to lose to Velgmon. They had confronted worse, after all.

Edd got on Reppamon's back and the two of them headed towards Velgmon, who was dealing with the combined assault of HolyAngemon and Lillymon now. That was when Edd heard some noises from behind.

"Blast Gatling!" Tankdramon launched a series of bullets with Eddy on his back.

"Thousand Arrow!" Matadormon yelled, running alongside Reppamon and shooting a series of rapiers from its sleeves, damaging Velgmon.

"Dragon Impulse!" AeroVeedramon yelled, flying toward Velgmon and unleashing a dragon of blue energy at the bird, damaging it even more.

"Flower Cannon!" Lillymon yelled, unleashing a blast from a cannon created with her hands.

"Now it's our turn," Edd felt the uneasiness flow out of him and get replaced with confidence as his crest glowed bright orange and his digivice started to shine. What he didn't notice what that his hat flew off while he performed the evolution.

**SUPER EVOLUTION_**

** "Reppamon evolve… Qilinmon!" **(pronounced Chilinmon) The Digimon's new form was radically different from Reppamon, having white wings that enabled flight, green and gold armor and a red horn on the front of its head. It also had blue lighting coming from its snout.

"Oh my gosh, he really did it," Rachelle commented, standing next to Zack. Zack was checking his digivice at the moment.

"He's a Perfect with the power of a Mega." Zack smiled. "We might have a chance." He didn't notice his crest on his chest starting to glow gold as he instinctively held Rachelle's hand.

"Wind-Cutter Sword!" Qilinmon yelled out, flying into Velgmon and impaling it through the front and then backing up. Velgmon fell toward the ground but started flying again, despite the gaping hole in its chest. Ed commented that the bird must have been a zombie.

"We almost have him!" Edd said.

"I know, just a couple more attacks," Qilinmon said, speeding up and creating a large group of clones that surrounded Velgmon.

"V-Wing Blade!" AeroVeedramon yelled from above, unleashing a wave of blue energy into Velgmon.

"Blast Gattling!" Tankdramon yelled out from below, exhausting his 3600 bullet ammo.

"Flower Cannon!"

"Knowledge of the Swift!" Qilinmon yelled, using its clones to disrupt Velgmon and damage him so that it fell to the ground, lifeless.

"It looks like it's over!" Eddy cheered.

"Not yet," Daniel said, facing the fallen bird.

"I believe Daniel's right," Edd said, getting off Qilinmon. Then the massive bird changed into a human with charred skin that was just lying on the ground.

"Hey, HolyAngemon! Use Holy Disinfection!" Eddy ordered.

"Do as he said," Daniel confirmed the order. HolyAngemon nodded and floated over to the human and performed his magic, yelling out the attack name while doing so. He crossed his arms and caused rainbow colored light to come from his wings. The human changed form and went from charcoal black all around to a middle-aged Caucasian man with brown hair, a red dress shirt with a matching red tie and black pants.

"An adult?" Edd wondered.

"Well, there _are_ adults in the digital world," Ingrid said. "Eddy's brother's one example."

Daniel looked far more shocked than anyone. "No way…" Daniel ran over to the man and checked his pulse. "He's alive!" Then the man started to move.

"Careful, we don't know what he's up to!" Qilinmon said.

The man looked at the Digimon with his blue eyes and despite being somewhat startled, knew exactly what happened. "No…"

"It's okay. You were being controlled or something," Daniel said.

"Wait, does Danny all the sudden trust this guy or something?" Eddy asked.

"You don't think he could be, like, his dad or something, do you?" Nazz suggested. The group looked at her and then back at Daniel and the mysterious adult.

"You know, they do look pretty similar," Ingrid remarked.

* * *

"So, there are others like you that are causing a bunch of problems?" Eddy inquired. The entire group had been up all night, listening to the man's story. It turned out that he was Daniel's father and that his name was Brian Battaglia. They had all grouped together in the hotel room that Ed, Eddy and Chaun had been using.

"Yes, exactly. They used to call ourselves the six until I defected, but now they call themselves the five. Much like me, they use the power of ancient devices called spirits to turn themselves into Digimon. I joined up thinking that I could find Daniel, not knowing what I was getting into."

"Do you work for anyone?" Edd asked.

"Someone named Symanski. Other than that, I don't know." Robert's eyes got wide at the name and so did Eddy. Robert walked over to the balcony with Terriermon's egg after hearing that.

"Symanski? That's the idiot that Robert and I ran into just before getting here!" Eddy exclaimed.

"Cool, maybe he'll be like Kurata," Ed commented.

"Um, dude, how would that be a good thing," Nazz asked.

"My sentiments exactly," Edd agreed, "the last thing we need is another genocidal maniac on the loose, collecting the data of Digimon."

"Yet, that is exactly what my former comrades were doing. I got two of them to agree with me, but they were both afraid to go with me. As it was, I wasn't able to Double Spirit Evolve so I wouldn't have been able to help them out."

"So, your group was who was destroying villages when we first got here, huh?" Zack asked. "Of course, you weren't a part of it, but now it makes sense."

"No way… On Folder Continent?" Eddy asked.

"That's where we started out at."

Eddy knew he had to talk to Robert about that, so he headed to where he was at on the balcony.

"So…"

"So… I want to be alone."

"I found out that your dad framed you for the villages on Folder."

"I kind of figured after we ran into him."

"And then there's your brother…"

Robert looked at Eddy. "Wait… what about him?"

"Your brother David goes by Damien."

"How did you figure this out?" Robert asked, caressing the egg in his hands.

"Well, this guy named Wisemon gave Ingrid a partner. Let's just say that the poor Digimon used to be partnered to David before getting thrown off a cliff. Now, if that doesn't sound like Damien, then I don't know who does. Besides, Wisemon said that he was working for my evil brother and well, I just connected the dots somehow."

"Somehow, that would make sense. Too bad I can't take him on right now." Robert looked at the egg in his hands.

Zack proceeded to walk out onto the balcony, along with Veedramon. "Hey, how's it going, man? I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to talk. Sorry about Terriermon."

Robert smiled, and then hugged Zack. "I'm so glad to see you again, man! You have no idea!"

"Geez, get a room you two!" Eddy objected.

"Oh, don't worry, they're like brothers!" Veedramon said.

"So, how's my family these days?" Zack asked.

"I… I haven't talked to them since shortly after we got back from the digital world. I went to go live with my aunt," Robert said ashamed.

Zack was shocked. "You mean you went to go live with Lee's mom?"

"After that I lived with Eddy for a little bit, trying to get some courage to call your dad. Kind of ironic that I found him."

"Yeah, well, anyway, I guess we might end up splitting into two groups: one to go looking for Yggdrasil and another to go rescue Marie and the kids."

"What? How come they didn't tell me this?" Eddy asked.

"It was Daniel's idea. Don't worry; they weren't going to go on without your consent. Besides, I think it would be a good idea for some of the team, especially the ones who got their Digimon deleted by Velgmon to go on the Yggdrasil search team. That way, if something happens to us, somebody will still be about there to beat the crap out of Derek when the time comes."

"Besides, there are other advantages," Sealsdramon commented, apparently having snuck onto the balcony and startling the three that were on it. "For one thing, such a large group as this one would have trouble getting through the border with the Guevara Empire."

"What the heck was my brother thinking when he named that? Did he think he was Che Guevara or something?" Eddy asked, speaking barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, you've got a point there, Sealsdramon," Robert responded, not even noticing Eddy's question.

"So do you remember anything else since digivolving again?" Eddy asked.

Sealsdramon nodded. "I remember close to everything."

* * *

**Arc 3: The Fall of Empire**

The border control for the Empire knew that the Blimpmon was headed through the border between the two countries. It had all the proper clearance and everything but something was not right. Damien watched on from the center seat in the golden-colored room that was once used by Daniel just before his first trip to the real world to go after Kudamon. Come to think of it, the abrasive blond hasn't replied for two days.

It was pretty obvious what had happened once the exact same Blimpmon left the country after merely stopping at a border town along the edge of the Server Desert. Damien knew that either it was part of an elite smuggling operation, possibly someone who was hoping to profit from the imminent war, or that it was the team that Eddy was a part of, moving into the Empire's territories to go after Eddy's brother himself.

To make sure, he had the Digimon in the room switch the screens to the security cameras in said border town. He found a group of humans, exactly what he was expecting.

But there were only about half of the expected team: Eddy, Edd, Ed, Nazz, Zack, Chaun, and May. Daniel, Garrett, Robert, Rachelle and Ingrid weren't even seen which meant that they were most likely on the Blimpmon. Damien knew that Zack had taken a Blimpmon, the same one that he used to search for Yggdrasil with, but this time the Blimpmon disguised itself.

Damien got word from the five warriors that his new partner was ready, but he didn't have an opportunity to go obtain it. It was the same with getting rid of three of the four human prisoners: Marie, Sarah and Jimmy. He had his own plans for Lee, since he had snuck the girls digivice and told her the secret for achieving the Mega Level. Of course, once he got his partner Digimon, he was going to outclass her in every way, especially after he got the digimental. At that point, there wouldn't be any Digimon that could defeat him until his father unleashed the absolute final stage of his plan.

Damien pressed a button on his chair's armrest. "Damien to the Emperor: it seems your brother has arrived in imperial territory."

"_Got it, Goth boy, Tactimon and I will intercept. In the mean time, you have the con. Don't screw up!" _Eddy's brother acknowledged from his quarters.

Yes, everything was according to plan.

* * *

Jimmy basically spent his entire time incarcerated doing pushups and sit up. He also attempted to run laps around his cell, feeling that he would have to save Sarah when the time came. The girl didn't have a Digimon partner, so he knew he was going to have to pull the entire weight.

This time, he had to be tough. He was gradually gaining in strength, even before getting kidnapped by Eddy's evil brother when Eric showed the boy some exercise routines that would help him get stronger. Jimmy secretly wanted to do so, even though he detested sports, especially hockey.

He wasn't going to give up hope. Not now. True, there were times when he cried, but he made sure that no one could hear him. Now his hopes were going to prove sufficient. Now was the time for escape. He was on the opposite side of his cell from the door when it burst open, and a massive Digimon with the head of a wolf and a body covered in white armor with a pair of massive gold swords strapped to his back came it, tossing something to Jimmy: his digivice and crest.

"Now is the time to leave," the Digimon said in a familiar voice. Jimmy checked the Digimon Analyzer on his digivice's screen: the Digimon was AncientGarurumon.

"Are we bringing Sarah?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes."

After the Digimon's response, another voice commanded something. "I think you should take Marie Kanker and her partner as well," Crusadermon said. "And I'm coming with you."

"Well, as long as the group isn't too large," Eric said through AncientGarurumon.

"It shouldn't be. A group of four humans along with four Digimon isn't what I would call large by any means."

With that, AncientGarurumon lead the group out the massive hole that he made and then Slide Evolved into MetalGarurumon and was followed by the kids except for Jimmy, who rode him down. Sarah was carried by Crusadermon who could fly on her own.

It was going to be a long journey ahead.

* * *

A/N: I apologize if the battle was hard to follow. It's extremely difficult dealing with such a large cast of characters. Now you know why updates have been sparse. Heck, to say that I'm much better with a smaller cast of characters would be an understatement. That's why I'm trimming the cast a little bit by splitting them off into a second team.

Yeah, the current arc pretty much ends with this chapter. I hope you like it. It's been a bit difficult for me to write for some reason, probably since this arc was vastly different than the first one. The third one, on the other hand, I'm looking forward to writing. Next chapter will contain some info on Eddy's Brother's trips through the digital world. I'm hoping to get back into a regular update schedule while I'm at it.


	27. The Revolutionary

Chapter 27: The Revolutionary

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy or Digimon.

* * *

**Peach Creek, Five Years Ago**

Derek couldn't resist a challenge. Ever since coming back from the digital world, life has been boring. All he did of note was taking over the cul-de-sac and blackmail its residents, except for any girl that was around, into doing his bidding.

He found the note in his locker. It was his eighteenth birthday and only a couple months of school remained. Yet, here he had a note telling him to come to the junkyard and to bring his Digimon.

Of course, only four other people knew about his Digimon. Why one of them decided to turn against him now, he didn't know, but he was going to find out.

* * *

He made it to the junkyard right after coming home from school and picking up Agumon.

"What are we doing, Derek," the yellow lizard Digimon asked.

"I got a challenge from someone and I'm going to take it."

"Are you sure that's a good idea."

"What else am I gonna do?" Derek asked, turning the corner into the junkyard. He pulled out his black and red digivice and checked the area. "Hm, my opponent seems to be hiding somehow. There aren't any digivice signals around."

"Why would any of them want to fight us?" Agumon asked.

"Cause they're jealous. Why else?"

"Still, it seems kind of fishy to me." Derek didn't tell Agumon what he was doing in the neighborhood. Before going to the digital world, he was already a scammer, going as far as to teach his younger brother how to scam at the age of four. Of course, this was Peach Creek. There's not much to do here.

"Don't worry, Agumon, I won't let anything happen to you," he assured the Digimon.

"I know, but…"

Then they saw their opponent. Eric was standing on top of a hill of garbage with MetalGarurumon, a scowl on his face.

"What's up, blondie?" Derek asked.

"You know what's up. You took over the cul-de-sac by force. You practically enslaved all the kids right down to your own brother."

"Hey, pipsqueak's always been my slave. What are you talking about?"

Eric rolled his eyes. "The thing is you're trying to amass a massive army of kids, probably to try and take over the town. You also blackmailed half the faculty at school."

"Yeah, so? That's what they get for giving me bad grades."

"That doesn't even mention that picture you took to extort me!"

"What picture?" Then Derek remembered. "Oh yeah! Hey, it's not my fault you're so fat and you've got such a…" Eric cut him off.

"Derek, leave the cul-de-sac behind and we won't have to fight. Now that you're eighteen, you can do that."

Derek adjusted his sunglasses and held out his digivice. "Agumon, ready to battle?"

"Yeah, but are you sure about this? MetalGarurumon's my friend."

"Don't worry. We'll definitely win this match."

**"Agumon Warp Digivolve to… WarGreymon!" **WarGreymon's form was much like BlackWarGreymon except the armor was of a vastly different color, being mostly yellow and silver where BlackWarGreymon was mostly black and grey.

The battle started quickly and ended after only a few minutes. WarGreymon was stubborn as ever though, and so MetalGarurumon unleashed his final attack on him, launching all his missiles and bombarding WarGreymon with them, causing the Digimon to disintegrate, much to Derek's shock. Thankfully, it turned back into an egg.

"So, who's the boss of the cul-de-sac now, huh?" Eric asked. MetalGarurumon moved slightly off to the side.

"You…" Derek was kneeling, looking at the ground.

"Just leave."

"Who was in on this?"

"Like I'd tell."

"I hate you!"

"Glad you still have some humanity left."

Three other figures showed up. Of course, Derek knew them. Their Digimon were hidden, except for one. It was the girl that used to be his girlfriend, but she ended up breaking up with him. She was the one person that he refused to blackmail, even though he could easily do so. "Millie. You're in on this?"

"No, I planned this." The girl had long blond hair, brown eyes, and was wearing a light purple shirt underneath a denim jacket along with form-fitting blue jeans. "Your reign of terror has gone on for long enough. Now it's time for you to leave town. I had Eric take you one because he was strong enough and his Digimon was small enough. If I hear that you've been causing trouble anywhere else, you're going to have to answer for it."

"Yeah, how? And how do you expect me to leave town?"

"Simple. Lotusmon will make sure." Her partner Digimon was standing next to her in its mega form of a fairy in a provocative purple outfit. She had two wands, one in each hand and was wearing white on her arms and dress.

"What… how could you?"

"You've been very abusive to your younger brother, Derek. Even after coming back from the digital world, you don't seem to have learned anything about kindness or goodness. In fact, you've gotten worse."

"Kindness? Who needs kindness?"

"We all do. You know that was the original Tamer's crest."

"So? It's a lame crest."

The girl glared at him. "Just leave. Lotusmon?"

The fairy moved toward Derek and the boy just started walking away. _Haven't learned from the digital world? What do you know?_ He turned around to give his former team the finger, but in the process got attacked by Lotusmon. He woke up later a thousand miles away with his motorcycle and a suitcase. The stupid fairy must have put him in a spell or something.

* * *

**Mondo-a-go-go, One Year Ago, June**

The day started like any other. Derek had gotten up at a quarter to ten, but he didn't really need to get up too early anyway. At that time he at least had two hours before the park opened. Now was the time to feed Koromon and himself, get dressed, shower, etc. before getting to work picking up corndogs and whatnot before opening the place and letting the first customers in. Of course, it was a weekday, so he wasn't expecting any customers. He had gotten dressed and had started eating when he received a knock at the door. He hadn't even had time to equip his digivice, either.

There shouldn't have been kids in the park. How they had gotten past the front gate was a question he didn't have an answer for, either. There were quite a few of them as far as he could tell, peeking through the window before reaching the door. Koromon looked at him, wondering what he was going to do next.

The first step was simple, tell the kids off. He usually didn't need to do anymore than that. To do that, he simply opened the door with the chain still hooked and peaked out saying: "Park don't open till noon." He was about to say get lost when the kid who knocked started talking. He recognized who it was right away.

He was still little. He's always been little. Oh, if he knew about Zed or whatever Clayton called himself these days then he'd be so jealous.

This was going to be fun…

Needless to say, things didn't turn out so well. The next thing he knew after getting a door slammed into his face was getting dragged into his own trailer by three girls that he didn't know and for all he knew could have been rapists. Then again, three girls who were about thirteen? Yeah right!

"The first one in side gets to give him mouth to mouth!" The lead one, an ugly read-head exclaimed. Funny how she was the first one inside.

So much for them not being rapists and just happening to want to give him first aid. Funny, the red-head claimed pipsqueak as her 'man'. Derek wondered if it was consensual.

He was put in his recliner, half-conscious. He glanced over at Koromon who was just sitting there, know knowing how to react. Who could blame him? It all got worse when Lee got on his lap and started to kiss his face, smiling while doing so. She was the most repulsive girl he had ever met.

Even worse than his ex-wife. _That's_ an accomplishment.

She wasn't all that great of a kisser, either. It didn't help that she was only around thirteen years old. Now if only Koromon could do something. Of course, he'd only tick the girls off and freak them out considering he looked like a pink talking head.

Koromon was an in-training level according to the American System, Baby II according to the Japanese system which Chuck always preferred. If only he could digivolve. If only…

"Hey, what's this supposed to be?" Marie asked as she looked at the pink, talking head on the table that just simply shrunk back.

"Ew, it's so gross. I know Ed would love this thing," May said. Lee got up off of Derek and walked over to it.

Now if only he could get his digivice. His trailer was drab, painted tan on the inside because he had no designing tastes. He had a flat-screen TV on the wall which was on and turned to that crappy Fishbowl 2 movie that the Kankers loved so much. Derek had a hard time getting up, but he managed to while the three girls were distracted by Koromon. Now just to get that digivice…

The only problem was that Marie caught sight of him as he entered his room and proceeded to run and tackle him. He was too badly injured to be of any threat to the tough, black-haired girl. He felt himself come down to the ground, his slight belly serving as padding. It wasn't his fault that obesity seemed to run through his family, coming from his dad's side. His dad had gotten most of it off by about the time he disappeared, but considering the man's Facebook page, he seemed to have gotten it back. How he could be that fat and still be married to such a hot chick was a mystery, but there he was, happily posing with his wife in the profile picture.

Emily was her name. He had no idea how the two of them met. Their wedding date was a little over three years after his parents' divorce. He had wondered how long their courtship was, but didn't care to ask.

Oh well. At least they didn't have kids together, right?

It's a shame he chickened out at the thought of sending a friend request to them. In fact, the closest relative he sent a request to was his cousin Diego and the idiot probably ignored it.

"Hey, look, he was trying to get his cell-phone!" Marie said, pointing to the black and red digivice on the bed.

Derek tried mumbling that it wasn't a cell phone, but nothing more than a gurgle came out. Now if only he could get to that thing.

He drifted into a deep sleep, trying to think of how he could get out of this mess.

Needless to say, his boss was going to be ticked, that is, if he actually checked on the place. There weren't going to be that many customers anyway, but still.

"You know, I think staying here is going to be fun," Derek woke up to hear Lee say. He wished these chicks would just leave, but that wasn't going to happen.

His injuries were slightly healed. Now at least he had some more motor control than usual.

"Yeah, really," Marie said in response to Lee. "Now what to do with the guy that Ed beat the crap out of…" She glanced over at Derek, who in response closed his eyes quickly. "Hey, the idiot's awake!"

"Ooh, that means we can have fun with him," Lee said.

_Crap! _Derek immediately got up and jumped toward the digivice. Soon, though, Lee was on his back. He grabbed the digivice just in time for Marie to grab on to him. Surprisingly enough, the gambit worked. Now the digivice was glowing with black light, fueled by Derek's hate. He recovered completely from his injuries and now his hair was thick as ever. He watched as his digivice changed form and opened it up to see that the keypad had changed as well.

Now to evolve Koromon! The small Digimon was in May's arms when he felt the rush to evolve coming forth. "Koromon digivolve to…!"

"BlackAgumon!" BlackAgumon immediately started unleashing fireblasts everywhere he looked. Derek didn't care. The girls ran out of the trailer and BlackAgumon chased after them. They were scum of the earth anyway, except for maybe the blonde one. Unfortunately, they were faster than BlackAgumon.

Still, one question was weighing on Derek's mind: why was his digivice upgraded. Maybe the Sovereigns decided they wanted his help again. If that was the case, he would gladly give it to them. First, though, he had something to do. "Agumon, Warp Digivolve!" he yelled, trying to cause the Digimon to go to Mega. It didn't work.

_Great,_ Derek cursed under his breath. Maybe the effects of that digicore wore off after he reverted back to an egg.

Oh well, at least he had the so-called champion form to use. That would be more than enough. He held out his digivice and saw BlackAgumon evolve into something different than what he expected, which was either a BlackGreymon or a virus-attribute Greymon. It turned into a Tyrannosaurus Rex with black scales: DarkTyrannomon.

"Destroy everything! Don't let them leave!" DarkTyrannomon launched a fireball right in front of the gate. His boss was going to be royally ticked now. It was approaching evening now and there didn't seem to be any customers either. That was fine with him.

The Kankers decided to split up. DarkTyrannomon went after Marie first. She had no idea that this day would turn into such a nightmare that it was. She just wanted to save his boyfriend. She ran toward the Ferris Wheel, which was attacked by a fire blast from DarkTyrannomon. Then the dinosaur attacked the giant prawn exhibit. An entire section of the park was starting to burn.

Derek didn't care. Chances are that he wouldn't have his job anyway. What else could he do? Just about the only options were to either go back home with his mom and stepdad, which was out of the question, or go bug Zack, his dad and stepmom, which was more plausible.

It wasn't going to happen.

He enjoyed his independence; he enjoyed doing whatever he wanted. Chances are that his dad would make him adhere to some rules that he didn't want to come under.

Suddenly, just as DarkTyrannomon destroyed another exhibit, a white light engulfed the entire park and the five felt themselves ascending somewhere. Then Derek saw himself going with a now devolved BlackAgumon through a dimensional portal.

* * *

He found himself in the digital world again. Home sweet home. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one there.

"Derek?" he heard a familiar voice ask out of confusion. He looked up and saw the familiar, and very fat, figure of Eric.

"Oh, it's you." Derek said. He wasn't particularly happy to see him, but the past was past.

"So, we've got a new team, huh?" Eric asked.

Derek looked around and saw the Kanker sisters. Somehow the three wretches got sucked in with him. He rolled his eyes at the thought.

"So, why the heck did the sovereigns bring us back?" Derek asked.

Eric took a deep breath. "They want us to take care of some despot here in the digital world."

"Yeah? Why the heck can't they do it themselves?"

"I may have an answer to that," a Digimon said from above them as he descended. "My name is Darkdramon. I am the one that requested to the sovereign Huanglongmon that you come back to the digital world. We need Megas and we need them desperately." Darkdramon was a reptilian Digimon with blue armor and white wings on its back as well as a lance attached to its right arm. It also had a companion on its shoulder in the form of an Impmon. "You see, the sovereigns have been getting defeated one by one. Now only Huanglongmon and Baihumon remain. This power vacuum has left the digital world in disarray. Now various powers are taking over in the form of vast empires, including the first: The Metal Empire."

"So, you need us?"

"Yes. I was expecting your group to be different, though…"

Derek smirked. "That's because these broads aren't a part of the team."

"Still, they'll need partner Digimon and possibly crests."

"I can arrange that," said a Digimon that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was Wisemon. "I have some urgent matters to attend to in the real world involving one of the next generation of chosen, but I can get these three girls partner Digimon. Unfortunately, the crests are all taken."

"Can't you just reuse the crests from my group?" Eric asked. "I don't even need crests since I can already go to Mega."

"I'm already doing that. There are only eleven crests to go around, remember. For everyone else, we'll need the blue cards to reach the perfect level. Ultimate on the other hand is different."

"You mean Mega," Derek said.

"Quite right. The partners are chosen as follows: Lee has Plotmon, Marie has Dorumon and May has FanBeemon."

"Who have the crests, then?" Eric asked.

"That's a secret."

"So, why are you here, then, Darkie?"

"Well, I'm meant to keep you in check," Darkdramon responded.

"So? I can't even evolve BlackAgumon to Mega."

"Then you may be kept in line for awhile."

"Now, to get to the mega level, you're going to have to merge with your Digimon. Do you understand?" Wisemon asked.

"Biomerge, eh?"

"Yes. Darkdramon will teach you. Au revoir." Wisemon was clearly in a hurry for he sunk into his book and it disappeared.

That was when a light came from the sky and several Digimon appeared along with Digivices, one for each of the three girls.

"Now, your training begins," Darkdramon told Derek.

* * *

The following few months were grueling, but they eventually made it to Mugendramon's tower, and were about to face him as three adult-levels and two Megas, excluding Darkdramon. Since Eric didn't have to biomerge, he hung out with MetalGarurumon.

"So, you ready?" he asked.

BlackWarGreymon nodded. "Yes. More than ever." He turned to the three girls. "You stay here in the elevator, okay?" They nodded.

"Glad your job has been easy so far?" Eric asked Darkdramon.

"Absolutely."

Just after saying that, the doors to the elevator opened revealing Mugendramon's throne room. Mugendramon was a large mechanical dinosaur with twin cannons on its shoulders.

Immediately, BlackWarGreymon and MetalGarurumon moved forward with Darkdramon coming through the middle. "This is just like Chaosdramon!" BlackWarGreymon proclaimed, "Except he's a lot weaker."

Darkdramon disappeared and reappeared behind Mugendramon. "Gigastick Lance!" he yelled as he stuck his lance into Machinedramon's back.

"Now!" Darkdramon yelled as BlackWarGreymon readied his gauntlets. The Dramon Killers were super effective against Mugendramon, causing the enemy Digimon to be sliced up in one hit. Except something was seriously wrong.

"Do you think I'd let you win that easily?" The real Mugendramon appeared, dropping down from the ceiling almost on top of BlackWarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. "You're supposed to be the chosen of old, so how come you're so weak? Giga Cannon." The enemy Digimon moved its cannons around and shot both of them at the two tamed Megas. "Of course, I can't expect you to be up to snuff after thousands of years.

Derek wasn't impressed. He felt rage run through his data-sphere and, using BlackWarGreymon, summoned a massive ball of negative energy. "Terra Destroyer!" Mugendramon was struck head on by the attack, but was still standing.

"It's a shame that you did away with such a good double."

MetalGarurumon and Darkdramon were planning a double attack. "Cocytus Breath!" the wolf attacked.

"Gigastick Lance!"

"Dramon Killer!" BlackWarGreymon yelled, posed for the final blow. However, Mugendramon had other plans and blocked the attack with his claw.

"Booster Claw." The Digimon spun the claw around and caused a massive amount of damage to the point where there a hole in BlackWarGreymon's armor and his flesh.

Eddy's brother felt the pain in his gut. _Not again! Not this time. I can't let another partner die…_Then the naked specter inside BlackWarGreymon glowed with such intensity. "This is for Agumon!"

"BlackWarGreymon… Slide Evolution!"

A few seconds later, the battle was over and all that remained of Mugendramon was machine parts scattered throughout the room.

"Well, it looks like you've won. You chosen are something after all." Mugendramon laughed heartily, even though his head was severed from his body and running on a back-up battery.

"I did just what I had to do to rid this world of a tyrant," the dark shadow above the former metal emperor said.

"Is that your reason? Somehow I get the feeling that you're going to be even worse than I am."

"Shut up!"

The deposed leader of the Metal Empire disintegrated and because Derek didn't want him back as a digi-egg, he had his Digimon absorb the enemy into his body and then proceeded to split from his Digimon.

The coup d'état was successful.

"Now the Metal Empire will go to its rightful ruler, Eric," Darkdramon announced.

"Are you kidding me? I don't want to rule." Derek already knew that that was the answer so he walked over to the massive throne and sat down.

"If you're not going to rule, then I am. It's not like I have anything better to do. If you don't like it, then watch as I shove BlackWarGreymon's gauntlets of your rear end. It won't be a pretty sight."

Eric knew this was a bad idea. However, the large blond knew that since Derek made up his mind, he had no choice but to go along with it, especially now that Derek's Digimon was stronger than MetalGarurumon and had a type advantage to boot. One of these days he was going to have to deal with the guy, but that was to be later.

* * *

Needless to say, most of the Empire's subjects were happy to have a new ruler. Mugendramon had oppressed them for years and had focused his efforts towards removing any of Yggdrasil's forces, namely the royal knights and the Sovereigns. With him gone, the nation could recover.

Well, that was the case until Derek got his own ideas about how to run things. His first order of business was to change the Empire's name from the Metal Empire to the Guevara Empire. Derek decided, along with that, to claim that he was the grandson of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, something that was a total lie and completely pointless since the Digimon had absolutely no idea who Che was. Still, both were revolutionaries and helped take over countries.

Eventually, after a couple months of rule, Derek decided to mobilize the entire Empire. He declared war on the nation that was then ruling Folder Continent to the north and won due to strength in numbers. Derek's plans for world domination, however, were frustrated when a team of chosen appeared in the conquered region, heralded first by a pair of kids, Garrett and Johnny, who had been found by Eric and taken to the Emperor's fortress.

The identities of the team of Tamers was a mystery. Eventually, though, Derek got pictures via a Sealsdramon who had been sent for reconnaissance purposes. It was about that time that Darkdramon turned against Derek and was subsequently defeated. The Digimon wasn't killed by Derek though. He escaped with severe damage throughout its body, hurling itself out the window and allowing himself to drop, realizing that if Derek deleted him himself, he would have the Digimon loaded.

He awoke in a strange chamber, still injured.

"Where am I? Who's there?" he asked.

"A servant of Yggdrasil." Darkdramon lifted his head to see a certain jackal-headed Digimon in an Egyptian priest's outfit.

"So, you're here to send me to the Dark Area for my sins, I take it?"

"On the contrary, the Dark Area is simply a myth designed to keep the populace in line. Over the centuries, the legends of the Dark Ocean combined with the concept of death created the myth. Instead, Digimon who are truly evil are simply never reincarnated and their data recycled into the digital world itself."

"Interesting."

"You can still serve our lord, though."

"What are you thinking of having me do?"

"You can be the chosen partner of the younger brother of your enemy. You see, Derek was chosen for a reason, more than simply his relationship with the first Tamer. He has good in him and can be redeemed."

"I realize that. Just, can he truly be redeemed before crossing his moral event horizon and committing the unforgivable sin?"

"The only way to commit an unforgivable sin is that of sinning seriously without remorse or regret and getting into the habit of doing so. He hasn't committed genocide, for instance."

"So, redemption it is. What do you want me to do?"

Anubimon was holding a small black and yellow device. "You're going to have to de-digivolve. Then, when the time comes, you'll be given to Edward. In the mean time, we have Zack to work on Derek, even though he will have limited effect.

* * *

Derek looked over the pictures. It was him. It couldn't have been him! Why he was here, he didn't know.

He was going to have to get rid of his friends, but he didn't want the boy to be harmed.

"Well, Clayton, it's been awhile…"

* * *

**Present Day**

Derek was eating dinner when he received the call from Damien telling him that a group of Tamers had made it into Imperial territory. He knew that Eddy was among them. He basically wanted Eddy to be with him and for Zack to leave the area as soon as possible.

"Well, Black Agumon and Tactimon, it's time to move," the large man said, finishing up his sushi.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, this was basically an info chapter. Next chapter will go back to the teams of tamers and the reasons for their splitting (other than merely a Cast Herd). See you then.

Oh, and Eddy's brother's ex girlfriend isn't a new character. She actually appeared in chapter 11 of this fic as well as in the fic Repercussions. She's not really important until the next fic and even then she just does a few things.

Oh, and Kudos to whoever can guess BlackWarGreymon's new form.


	28. We Travel By the Night

Chapter 28: We Travel by the Night

* * *

Disclaimer: Do not own!

A/N: Despite the cast all the sudden being cut in half for the time being, the other characters are still going to be mentioned a bit along with some reason for them not to be there.

* * *

It was hot. Eddy never knew such heat and had to struggle to prevent himself from complaining about it. He knew that they had to travel on foot to avoid suspicion but he was pretty sure that the Digimon from the village knew who they were. It turned out that everyone except for the Aristocracy and the Military absolutely hated the emperor, though, so that shouldn't have been too much of a problem.

Maybe.

"So, how much longer?" Eddy asked. The entire group, seven humans and their partner Digimon, had been walking for several hours since being dropped off at a nearby town. Eddy knew that he had only one more day before having to give himself over to his brother and he wasn't thrilled about it. At least this time he told the others.

"Not much," Zack responded. "There's a series of caves nearby that we could hide in. Once we get there, we can stay for the rest of the day and then do the rest of our traveling at night."

Zack had explored the area so he knew about everything that could be used in the final strike against the emperor. Unfortunately, they felt that now wasn't the time for it. However, they had to save the kids that were imprisoned.

In order to get to the Imperial Fortress, they took a route out of town that would seem like the obvious way to get there and then proceeded to get off the path as soon as possible so that the Emperor couldn't track them. They also put their digivices in stealth mode. Now, about the only thing that could possibly track them would be any satellites that are up above. However, that was a non-issue since the only satellites orbiting the digital world were owned by countries that were enemies of the Empire.

It took only a few more minutes before the reached the caves, or better yet, caverns. The group walked inside and instantly felt the refreshingly cool air from deep inside. About the only thing they could be afraid of was if a group of Dokugumon showed up. However, since both Sealsdramon and Veedramon were already at the Adult level, that wouldn't be a problem.

"Oh, I'm so glad to be out of that heat," Nazz said, taking in a deep breath of the cool, humid air.

"Honestly, I don't understand how they could possibly portray the desert as anything remotely bearable on the TV show," Edd commented.

"Like, totally, dude. How are you doing, Palmon?"

"Alright. I felt like I was beginning to wilt out there," the plant Digimon said, sinking her roots into the ground for nourishment. "At least I don't have to worry too much about getting more sunlight."

"Wow, that's good!"

Each of the kids were trying to keep busy somehow whether it be sleeping, like Ed and May on opposite sides of the cavern with their partners, or reading a book with the help of a flashlight which was what Zack and Edd were doing almost right next to each other while Kyaromon read along and Veedramon simply curled up and slept. Eddy was busy strategizing his upcoming battle with his brother while Sealsdramon was keeping watch at the mouth of the cave. Chaun was writing some stuff down and Nazz was exploring the cave.

It turned out that the cave was a dark and damp cavern with two rooms filled with pools of water which was going to be perfect if they wanted to take a bath before going out that evening to wake up. One would be for the guys and one for the girls.

* * *

Damien felt a chill run through his body as he flew off while inside Hermmon. The sun was setting and the air was cooling down. He just hoped that he could get back before Derek.

He landed in front of a cave on Folder Continent. The feeling was intense, but he resolved himself. It was one of his first times meeting with his father's agents since coming to the digital world. "I'm here."

He felt a chill and looked to his side to see the warrior of light: Beowolfmon. "Figures you'd come eventually," the Digimon said in a Nigerian accent.

"Where's my partner?"

"Just inside. I would suggest separating from Hermmon first."

Damien did so in a flash. PicoDevimon just perched on his shoulder while the boy entered into the cave. Beowolfmon followed the duo. "So, are you sure you want to do this, bud?" PicoDevimon asked.

"Are you kidding me? This Digimon is the one that I wanted as a partner from the beginning. There's no way I'm letting this opportunity slip away."

The three entered into a room where several figures were. "It's about time you came here, boy," the lead figure said in a gruff voice that sounded like a stereotypical drill sergeant. "We were wondering when you were going to show." The figure moved forward and revealed himself as the orange-colored, horned headed humanoid with a beast's lower body, Ardhamon.

"Yeah? Let's just get to the point: I want my partner and I want him now. You are going to give him to me."

Ardhamon grinned. "Alright, boy, the Digimon's yours. Just remember that the day will come when he gets destroyed. Got it?"

Damien smirked. "Alright. Hand him to me."

* * *

It was about eight-thirty when the group got ready to leave the cavern. They all went to the rooms for bathing and to wake up from sleeping. They each went in together because of how they only had a little bit of time.

Nazz and May went in together and, noticing that May was being awfully quiet, Nazz decided to strike up a conversation. "Hey, May, how's it going?" she asked, soaking herself with the water up to her shoulders.

"Great! I'm glad to finally be with some people I actually know."

"I bet, dude. It must have been rough spending all that time with either Eddy's brother or all those Digimon. How's Pupumon?" Nazz asked, referring to the light blue head-like baby Digimon in May's arms.

"He's doing good."

"It must have been hard having him reverted like that, huh?"

May nodded, a tear streaming down her face. "I thought for sure that he was a goner."

"I know, huh. I can only imagine what that one Damien guy felt when his partner Digimon got deleted and absorbed into BlackRapidmon."

May looked at Nazz in shock. "You know Damien?"

"Well, dude, I can't say I know him. We were on opposite sides, after all."

May looked to her side. "Damien wouldn't feel sorry for his partner Digimon like that. Knowing him, he probably wanted to get rid of it."

Nazz took a deep breath. Of course, she only knew part of the story about how he put everyone in separate rooms and tortured them with illusions but she figured that most of it was Boogymon's idea. "That's so cruel, dude."

"You know who was his partner before, right? Dracmon. And then he tossed the Digimon off the side of a cliff. I was amazed he showed up last night to help us."

"That's so crazy, dude. How can somebody be such a sore loser and treat Digimon like garbage? And here I thought he was kind of cute. So, what boys do _you_ like?"

"There is one…"

"Do you like Johnny Depp?"

"I can't remember. Who is he?"

"You know Captain Jack Sparrow?"

"On Star Trek?"

Nazz fell backwards laughing. "No, he's from Pirates of the Caribbean, silly. The guy from Star Trek is pretty cute, too, though. I hear they're going to release a new one this year."

"Maybe I can take Ed to that one," May whispered. Nazz didn't quite hear.

"Who?"

"Oh, nobody!"

"There's a guy you like! Is he cute?"

"Oh, he's absolutely adorable. I've been missing him ever since I got here."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the boys' section, everybody was trying to keep a safe distance from everyone else. However, Eddy was sitting right next to his heavier brother, practically too close for comfort. "So, Zack, how come you didn't invite Rachelle along? I thought up some pretty awesome ways of using Taomon and Tankdramon together."

"Uh, we decided to stay on different teams for personal reasons."

"What did you guys have a thing going on or something?"

"I'm not going to answer that question. Can you please give me a little bit more room? It's bad enough being in a pool with a bunch of naked guys."

Eddy scooted over a little bit. "Man, I figured something was going on between you and Rachelle when we got here for the first time," Chaun commented. He was pretty well-chiseled without a shirt on. "Oh, how you guys hardly talked to each other and the awkward glances..."

"Won't you guys stop!"

"Well, we are all going through that wondrous phase in transition to adulthood where we begin to notice the opposite sex," Edd stated, laughing to himself, much to Zack's dismay.

"Man! Can you guys stop that! I can't believe you said that, Double T. Okay, Rachelle and I kind of had a thing for each other at one time, but we broke it off from each other because we both agreed that we were too young to have a lasting relationship and that our parents didn't really want us dating."

"Girls make me feel all funny inside," Ed said.

"By the way, I actually go by Double D. It's nothing to be ashamed about, really. Rachelle's actually quite attractive."

"Are you kidding me? She's not 'quite attractive,' she's hot!" Eddy exclaimed. "Man, if I were you, I'd still be going out with her. Of course, she kind of hates me."

"Okay, here's the thing: if I went out with her, I'd be disobeying my parents. Besides, what were the chances of our relationship lasting? My dad told me that the younger you are, the less likely the relationship's going to last. He also told me that I should wait for a while since being in a relationship isn't the end all, be all of life."

Eddy looked at Zack with a confused face. "Man, what are you smoking? Who doesn't want to have a cute girl in their life? Heck, especially someone like Nazz with that great, smooth body, those breasts, those eyes."

Zack's eyes went wide. "It's strange: I seem to be detecting elevated pheromone levels, heartbeat and blood pressure in Zack," Sealsdramon said.

That caused everybody to burst out laughing with the exception of Zack, who blushed in embarrassment. Then Palmon walked in. "Hey, I hate to burst the bubble here, but it's time to get going. The girls are all ready."

"Good lord, what are you coming in here for?" Edd exclaimed, shocked at the sight of Palmon. "We're naked for crying out loud!"

Palmon did what passed for an eye-roll and simply walked away.

"Um, you do realize that Digimon are constantly naked anyway, right?" Chaun told Edd while getting out of the bath. Eddy and Ed followed, being the ones that cared the least about being seen naked by anyone.

"To be honest, we don't actually have a concept of clothing or gender, even though some of us have secondary sexual characteristics," Kyaromon, Kudamon in his in-training form, explained, eliciting a snicker from Eddy.

"Oh, come on, grow up!" Edd told him while Zack got up and put on his clothes, rolling his eyes at the same time.

* * *

The night air was cool. It was a desert, after all, so that was to be somewhat expected. The hope was that they would get to the Imperial Fortress without any trouble. Eddy knew that wasn't going to be the case if Wisemon was right. He didn't know how the Digimon could tell the future, but it unnerved him to no end.

"So, how was it like growing up with Garrett," Zack asked Eddy.

"We were hardly even around each other. Even then, we didn't have much of a relationship. I guess he knew something that I didn't."

"You think he knew that you weren't related?"

"Something like that. You know, our ancestors founded Peach Creek."

"Really?"

"I saw a picture of them from 300 years ago."

"And how do you know they're our ancestors and not just our stepdads'?"

"Dude, they look just like us!"

"Last name?"

"Um, they were still the McGees. I think they came here from Ireland. Some guy named Eduardo McGee founded them, I guess. Didn't actually see any pictures of him though."

Zack raised an eyebrow. _That is weird. Maybe we've got a common ancestor. Though, to be honest, I'm not sure if mom's got any Irish in her._ "What does Derek think about this?"

"Beats me!"

Zack's eyes narrowed. "I think when I get back home I'm going to run this by dad. Somehow I get the feeling there's more here than we know."

Eddy thought about that for a few seconds. "So, what's dad really like, anyway?"

Zack had to put his thoughts together. "I don't know how to describe him. He's this really happy-go-lucky guy who works his tail off to support us. He's pretty strict but lenient at the same time. He's a pretty sensitive person."

"So, are you sure that he didn't come from anywhere near Peach Creek?"

"Dad was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. That's thousands of miles out of the way." Eddy looked at Zack with shock.

"Wait, you mean my dad comes from Europe?"

"No, that's South America, actually," Edd said from in front of the duo.

"Thanks Double Deed."

"So that means I'm not white?"

"No, we're white, white Hispanics anyway. Mom's originally from California, though."

"What?" Eddy said after the white Hispanic remark.

"Our heritage is completely European."

"I still don't get it. Doesn't being Hispanic mean we're not white?"

"Hispanic's not an actual race."

"It isn't?"

* * *

Datamon's plan was complete. He had an army of Mechanorimon put together to track the Tamers and alert the Emperor if they found the Tamers. For some reason, Damien decided to leave the Imperial Fortress on business but not before leaving someone else in charge.

Datamon had never seen the Digimon before inside the Imperial Fortress, but apparently Damien trusts her. He just hoped that Damien had the right idea.

"So, what are you up to this time?" the female Digimon asked from the shadows behind Datamon who was busy working on flight projectories for the Mechanorimon.

"I'm trying to search for the Digidestined that have infiltrated imperial territory."

"Oh. That's good. Ugh, I hope Damien gets back soon. Keeping track of everybody here is too much work and I need to sleep."

Datamon was ticked at her rambling. He wanted her to just leave him alone. Unfortunately, being at the Mega level meant that she would probably delete him in an instant.

A few minutes later, the Digimon found something. "Datamon to the emperor: I found the team of Digidestined. They are currently about fifteen miles to the southeast of your location. Sending a squadron of Mechanorimon."

_"I don't want you doing that, Buckethead!"_ he heard the Emperor yell through the communication device.

"Too late. A squadron has already engaged. I'll just order the other squadrons to back down."

_"Good. That'll keep them busy while I head for their location. No more orders like that, got it?"_

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

They struck quickly with moderate force. It was a platoon of silver-colored machine Digimon with blue domes on top and long arms. Quickly, the team of chosen evolved all their Digimon to the Adult level to combat the threat.

"Palmon evolve… Togemon!"

"Kyaromon warp evolve… Reppamon!"

"Hawkmon evolve… Aquilamon!"

"Wormmon evolve… Stingmon!"

May hated the feeling of being helpless while the other Digimon went up against the group of Mechanorimon. Still, there wasn't much she could do. However, she felt a rush through her body and the desire to help out everyone, above all Ed, caused a massive amount of energy to flood through her digivice.

Her Digimon jumped out of her arms and headed for the enemy, yelling out "pupupupupu!" and glowing. Then it transformed into Waspmon.

"Whoa, that was awesome!" May exclaimed.

"Still, we're hopelessly outnumbered here!" Eddy exclaimed, adjusting the goggles on his head.

"Eddy's right! Come on, guys, focus on the attack!" Zack yelled out. He felt a bit of jealousy because of Eddy being the one who was technically running things.

Surprisingly, the Digimon were actually pretty weak. Of course, the main problem was the shear amount of them. Still, they all fell like nothing. However, the Digimon were still there on the ground when they were all defeated.

"Okay, how come they're not eggs yet?" Eddy asked.

"Maybe they're piloted by Bakemon," Ed suggested. Unfortunately, he was right and soon a bunch of sheet-wearing ghost Digimon flew out of the Mechanorimon before they disintegrated.

"Why did you have to be correct for once?" Edd asked the tall Ed.

"Okay, boys, it's time to kick some more butt!" Eddy exclaimed. Of course, things had to get even worse since the enemy Digimon combined to form an even bigger Bakemon. "Oh crap!" Eddy thought about things for a second. "Any idea where the weak spot is, Sealsdramon?"

Sealsdramon threw a knife, striking the enemy Digimon in the abdomen. "Right there."

"Okay, we should be able to beat this guy with a group of Adults. Ready!"

Everyone nodded, even the Digimon.

"V-Breath Arrow!"

"Death Behind!"

"Shinkū Kamaitachi!**"**

"Spiking Finish!"

"Blast Laser!"

"Prickly Bang-bang"!

"Bear Buster!"

The attacks coming on the enemy all at once caused it to explode into millions of tiny particles.

"Wow, dude, we did it!" Nazz exclaimed.

"Good thinking, Eddy and Sealsdramon!" Chaun said.

"That was a good strategy if I'd say so myself," Edd said.

"Cool move, Eddy," Ed commented. "We didn't even have to use the strategy they used on the show."

"Oh well, I guess we can just continue on," Eddy said.

"Are you joking, Eddy? The enemy knows where we're at," Sealsdramon said. A few seconds later and a massive mechanical dinosaur with twin cannons rose up from the ground.

"Machinedramon!" Ed yelled.

"So, Mugendramon's still alive, eh?" Chaun wondered.

Everyone looked at the enemy Digimon with determination on their faces. That is, everyone except for Eddy.

He knew that it was time.

* * *

A/N: That ends the current chapter. Hopefully the thing about Eddy's ancestry made some sense. I'll be getting into more of that soon, anyway. Basically, the whole subplot is a deconstruction of the Identical Grandparents concept found in 'A Town Called Ed,' even though I like the episode. There's something about having ancestors 300 years back looking just like you that doesn't sit well with me for some reason. Hey, it's fun to toy with. That's what fanfiction's for, right? (along with Mary Sues and Crack Pairings). Hopefully nobody freaks out because of it.


	29. Hopes Dashed and Fulfilled

Chapter 29: Hopes Dashed and Fulfilled

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't Own

* * *

_Eric walked into the room briskly. He wasn't happy. First, there was the whole getting sucked into the Digital World thing. Okay, no problem: the time dilation effect was most likely still around. Still, he wasn't allowed to leave and Derek decided to take over the country in the mean time._

_ "So, what made you decide to rule the place in the end?" Eric asked. Derek was busy setting things up in his room._

_ "Simple, after defeating Mugendramon there was going to be a massive power vacuum in this world. Since you refused the throne, I figured it would be an opportunity for me to take power. Hey, I always thought it would be fun to rule a country. Might as well." Derek smiled widely._

_ "Okay, now when do we go home?"_

_ "Eh, probably never. I don't have anything to go back to anyway. You?"_

_ "My roommate will get really ticked if I don't pay rent and he'll probably throw out all my stuff if I don't come back. How's that?"_

_ Derek didn't respond. Nor did he want to. As far as Eric's situation was concerned, he didn't care. Heck, he didn't even care to tell him about the gate back to the real world._

_ In reality, he wanted Derek there for support, though not even he realized that. They were best friends for years before Eric turned on him and Derek remembered that._

* * *

He woke up because of an explosion. Eric and his group were in a border town that connected to the Northern Socialist Republic via a massive bridge that was crossed via Locomon. They were staying in a run down hostel that looked like something out of a horror movie. To make matters worse, there weren't any beds to sleep on, just old futons.

"What was that?" Marie asked. She wasn't happy. She had suggested to Eric that they go join up with the other kids such as May, but he decided not to. It also irked her that she was traveling with a 23 year-old who wasn't the least bit attractive and a couple of kids that she didn't particularly like. The feeling with the kids was actually mutual.

"It sounds like the guys from the north decided to start a raid to try to get the Emperor to declare war on them," Eric surmised, "We've gotta get out of here."

"Didn't you say that we had to meet with someone who would smuggle us across the border?" Marie asked, getting up.

Eric nodded. "Yeah. Still, we can't stay here much longer." Then a device in his pocket started ringing and he answered it. "Hello."

_"I'm almost there. Just almost got killed by weapon's fire. So much for calling you tomorrow."_

"Good, where are you at?"

_"Just round the corner from your hotel or whatever. You?"_  
"In my room. We'll meet you just outside the entrance. See you later."

_"Alright. Good bye."_

"Okay, everybody, it's time to wake up or get killed! Jimmy, Sarah, Patamon and Crusadermon, let's get the heck on out of here!"

Everyone scrambled to get their clothes on and ran out of the room as quickly as possible. Upon running out, a small Digimon, about a head shorter than Jimmy, ran into them.

"Good, found you guys," the Digimon said.

"Wait, I was expecting someone a bit bigger," Eric commented.

"I got ambushed and forced to devolve. To make matters worse, I don't even have my mic. Now, follow me." The Digimon led the group through the small town while a number of Pteramon were flying up above, demolishing buildings.

"So, you're now stuck at your rookie form? Wait, what level were you at before?"

"Mega." The Digimon finally led the group to the new rendezvous point. "Alright, here we are." They were now all beneath a street light and the Digimon could be seen fully. It was a small, red dragon Digimon with a V-shaped head and blue eyes. It was also wearing green headphones. Jimmy didn't recognize the Digimon so he pulled out his digivice and looked at it.

"Shoutmon, Child Level, Vaccine Attribute."

Shoutmon was also had a beige backpack on with what looked like a black and bronze digivice on the strap that looked like the same new model as Ingrid's.

That puzzled the group to no end. "So, are you guys actually going to get on the boat or what?" Shoutmon asked.

"Uh, sure," Eric said, getting onto the flimsy old yacht that was connected to the dock. He was followed by Gabumon, Jimmy and Patamon, Sarah and Crusadermon, Marie and Dorumon and finally Shoutmon.

"So, what's with the ugly backpack?" Marie asked.

"Oh, this is part of a secondary mission I've got. You see, I need to get this egg to its rightful tamer. At the moment, though, I can't do that."

"That stinks. Who's the rightful owner?"

"That's currently classified. I was told that I have to cross the Dark Ocean to get to him, though."

"The Dark Ocean?" Jimmy asked.

"Technically, the Dark World but whatever. I have to go there and then find a way to the human world from there."

"That's weird. Why don't you just go straight to the human world?" Sarah asked.

"Beats me but those were the instructions that Anubimon gave me. Now why he couldn't just take the egg there himself is beyond me."

It seemed the group had made it out alive but things weren't over yet. Soon, an enemy Digimon appeared seemingly out of nowhere to attack them and immediately attempted to capsize the boat they were all on. It was like the disturbing cross between a giant squid and a man in a blue outfit with numerous tentacles and three eyes. Jimmy used his digivice to ID it and got: "MarineDevimon, Perfect Level, Virus Attribute."

Crusadermon immediately moved forward to confront the enemy Digimon, but before she could do anything with the ribbons on her shoulder, she was attacked by a nasty black gunk from the enemy's mouth that enveloped here. "Crusadermon!" Sarah yelled for the Digimon that had become her friend.

"Now for my finishing move," MarineDevimon yelled before getting struck by a Heaven's Knuckle attack from Angemon.

"Leave us alone!" Jimmy yelled. He had the hope that they would return to their world and he wasn't going to let some oversize squid-man dash that to pieces.

Marie was about to evolve Dorumon when Eric grabbed her by the shoulder. "Let Jimmy take this guy on," he said. Marie then nodded. Eric knew that he could defeat the enemy Digimon in one hit but that wouldn't allow the others to grow.

Especially Jimmy…

"Why if only I had my mic…" Shoutmon mumbled.

* * *

Elsewhere, the team of Tamers that was infiltrating the Empire to save Jimmy and Sarah were face to face with the former emperor himself.

First though, they would need to go up a level to actually stand a chance against this enemy. That's exactly what they did.

"Sealsdramon Super Evolve… Tankdramon!"

"Veedramon Super Evolve… AeroVeedramon!"

"Reppamon Super Evolve… Qilinmon!"

"Stingmon Evolve… JewelBeemon!"

"Waspmon Evolve… CannonBeemon!"

"Aquilamon Super Evolve… Garudamon!"

"Togemon Super Evolve… Lillymon!"

"Now, everybody, attack him all at once!" Eddy yelled. He had a feeling that this was going to be the time to give himself up to his brother, but he wasn't going to give in to fate willingly. Not now, anyway.

Each Digimon unleashed their most powerful attacks from AeroVeedramon's Dragon Impulse to Lillymon's Flower Cannon. In response, Mugendramon unleashed his Giga Cannon attack, which seemed to hold the enemy at bay and then backfired as the attacks overcame that specific one, severely damaging the enemy Digimon in the process.

Then the unexpected happen. Despite the massive gaps in his armor revealing the circuitry underneath, Mugendramon was still standing.

"Okay, dude, what's going on?" Nazz was the first to ask before Mugendramon yelled something out.

"Mugendramon Slide Evolution… BlackWarGreymon!"

"Crap!" Eddy yelled. "Please tell me that's his only form that I didn't know about."

"He's got another one. Sorry I didn't tell you guys," May said to him.

"Oh, brother."

"Oh, brother is right, pipsqueak!" BlackWarGreymon said in Eddy's Brother's voice. "After absorbing the Metal Emperor's data, I figured out how to access this form which was a natural Mega form in the DarkTyrannomon line. Then again, you wouldn't have been able to know that, huh, pipsqueak?"

Zack looked straight into Chaun's eyes. They both knew what the other was thinking and so Chaun tossed his digivice to Zack and the larger boy linked them together at the top.

**JOGRESS EVOLUTION_**

"AeroVeedramon!"

"JewelBeemon!"

"Jogress evolve to… Imperialdramon!"

Immediately Imperialdramon started charging up his cannon attack.

"What the… How the heck did you guys do that?" Eddy asked in disbelief.

"Simple, I pushed the tops of our digivices together and voila, Imperialdramon. You can only perform Jogress Digivolution with certain Digimon, though, so no mix and matching. To cancel, all I'll have to do is push them together again," Zack explained.

Things weren't going well. Even as Imperialdramon unleashed his Positron Laser attack while BlackWarGreymon grabbed his shield and blocked with it. "Oh, man, is that the best you've got? You're pathetic!" BlackWarGreymon said in Eddy's brother's voice.

Eddy realized that winning was most likely out of the question and his thoughts were confirmed when Imperialdramon was sliced up by BlackWarGreymon's Dramon Killer technique. "I know that this is what? The first time getting to this level? Still, this is ridiculously easy. Shouldn't you be winning against me or something cheesy like that just because?"

"Shut up!" Zack yelled, practically at the end of whatever wits he had.

"Oh, please, and you were supposed to be the calm one." BlackWarGreymon floated down to the level of the other kids. "I know that I was really disappointing, Zack, but this is uncalled for."

Zack glared at the enemy Digimon that was fused with his brother. "Here's the thing: we're here for one thing and one thing only: to rescue some friends of Eddy's from you! I'll take you on, even if I have to force a biomerge to do so." He devolved Imperialdramon and then yelled out: "Biomerge Activate!" while holding out his digivice. Nothing happened, though.

Eddy looked at Tankdramon and then at AeroVeedramon and then noticed a massive boulder to the right of Tankdramon. "You know what? I think I'll make this easy on you guys." BlackWarGreymon created a massive sphere of negative energy with his hands. "Terra Destroyer!" he yelled, unleashing it on the suspecting Digimon that were all on the ground, causing an explosion that engulfed the Digimon and their human partners. When everything was said and done, what remained was the Digimon in their Child forms and their partners, almost completely passed out.

That is, except for one: Eddy. He had managed to get behind the boulder in time. He walked out from behind the rock to face his brother, even though his Digimon had devolved all the way back to Commandramon, out cold.

"So, will you be my prisoners or what?" BlackWarGreymon asked.

Eddy took a deep breath. There was no way that he could get out of this now. "I'll go with you if you let my friends leave and if you let Jimmy, Sarah and Marie go."

BlackWarGreymon hovered over to right in front of Eddy. The once-short Ed didn't know what the massive armor-clad dragon man was going to do. "It seems that while I was out, someone came and broke those three out of jail along with their Digimon. At least that was what Damien told me. I don't know why he didn't bother taking care of them like he should have. That kid confuses me."

"Maybe you shouldn't trust him. Still, let my friends go!"

"Or else…? You see, you're powerless against me. Your Digimon's in its Rookie form. Your friends' are all the same way. The only way you can defeat me is if your other friends came and went to the Mega Level themselves. Gotta admit, it would be pretty darn satisfying taking on that traitor Daniel in his Digimon's mega form, but that ain't gonna happen."

"Shut up. Are you going to take me along or what?"

"Sure. Tactimon?" Tactimon showed up from behind BlackWarGreymon.

"Yes, my liege?"

"Take these ankle biters to the town of Star City to the southeast. Fit them with the best Zepplinmon you can find."

"You sure you don't want to just kill them?"

"I don't kill kids. Besides, who's gonna save the world when I'm gone? Come on, Eddy."  
Eddy was visibly shaking.

"Eddy! You don't have to do this!" Edd yelled out, barely standing as Eddy walked up to BlackWarGreymon and grabbed onto his back, Commandramon close behind despite injuries.

"Sure I do. I'll be going to the real world in a little bit," Eddy responded, trying to crack a smile. "Meanwhile, you're in charge." Eddy started to take off the goggles to hand to his friend, but Edd refused to take them.

"Keep them. Now, honestly, I don't see how you could be headed to the real world. Wasn't the gate destroyed?"

Eddy didn't know what was going on. Heck, he wondered if that Wisemon guy was pulling his leg or something. Still, the guy somehow maneuvered stuff around in the past for him. Eddy had to wonder if there was something more to him, though. Something about him seemed… familiar and it would bug him to no end as he flew on his brother's Digimon's back to the Imperial Fortress.

* * *

"So, are we going to get going or what?" Tactimon asked, moving in the direction of the town they were headed to. "Just so you know, this doesn't mean we're on the same side. We will do battle!" Tactimon held up his fist.

Edd didn't like what Eddy did. The entire thing made no sense. Of course, offering himself in the place of his friends was commendable, but knowingly putting yourself in a position to be abused by the same older brother that put you through years of misery? Edd knew it wasn't right.

"Don't worry, Double D. Eddy's going to the real world, soon," Ed told him.

"How on earth could you know that?" Edd asked.

"Wisemon said so."

"Now, honestly, I'm going to have to meet this Wisemon fellow before I make any assumptions to that effect."

"I agree with Double D," Zack said. "I never met this Wisemon guy before. For all we know, he could be leading Eddy to his death."

"Seriously, dude, I know Wisemon helped us out when he helped Ed activate his crest. That must mean something," Chaun said. "Besides, he offered to take the crest of Friendship to its rightful owner."

"How do you he did that? For all we know, the crest is being used for the guys own purposes or something."

"He didn't take my crest or Eddy's," Ed defended.

"Dude, can't we just go already?" Nazz asked.

"Yeah, really, I know that this whole thing about Eddy being taken by his brother is getting on everybody's nerves, but we can't do anything about it," Palmon said. "Oh, and anybody remember who's keeping tabs on us?"

With that, the group ran to catch up with Tactimon.

"You know that fighting this Digimon is inevitable, right?" Edd asked Zack.

"Yeah, pretty much. Let's just hope that it happens when we're ready."

"I agree. We'll have to have the Digimon well rested so that you can get Imperialdramon up and ready while I have Qilinmon take on Tactimon at the same time. That's the only way we could possibly win."

May just followed at a distance behind Ed. She knew what was happening but was having a hard time dealing with it. Not to mention, her beloved's best friend was taken away from him by that jerk.

* * *

Angemon knew that the battle was going to be hard, but he had faith in his partner. Apparently, so did everyone else since he wasn't getting any help. Crusadermon was understandable since the Mega was already weak to begin with and would most likely disintegrate if they didn't do anything. Most likely it was just willpower that was keeping her alive in the first place.

Jimmy had hope that she would live.

Dorumon on the other hand was just sitting there, obviously wanting to help but not being allowed to by Marie who was being held back by Eric.

Jimmy hoped that one of them would step in if things got too much.

The tide started to quickly turn in the favor of MarineDevimon, though, as the massive squid-man slapped Angemon into the water with his tentacles and then turned toward the yacht.

"Now, for the Republic!" MarineDevimon shouted, about to attack.

Jimmy's crest started to shine. He though of his parents and all his friends that he knew he would see again and knew that the battle was won as Angemon flew above the water in a new form, that of HolyAngemon but with a flowing white robe and a massive sword.

"HolyAngemon Priest Mode, huh?" Eric mused.

"Weren't you already down, prettyboy?" MarineDevimon asked.

"Not quite. Now for my final strike, Excalibur!" HolyAngemon held the sword in the air and struck at the enemy who failed in an attempt to block with his massive tentacle arms, which were quickly vivisected by the sword as it struck its target and sliced it in two, quickly disintegrating pieces.

HolyAngemon turned to Crusadermon. "I can cure her," he said, lowering himself to use his Holy Antidote on her. He did so and the black sludge quickly disappeared from the pink knight.

"Thank you," she said while sitting up.

"Careful, you're still weak."

"Yeah, you don't want to overextend yourself," Sarah said.

"Don't worry, Sarah, I'm going to be fine." Then suddenly, a white orb appeared and a purple and pink digivice appeared for Sarah to grab. She held it up to her partner and a white light came out of it and healed her, returning her shield and restoring her armor to its former luster.

"It seems we're partners," Crusadermon told her.

"Yes!" Sarah hugged her Digimon.

_She's already at the Mega Level, so that's taken care of. Now for Jimmy and Patamon to become Seraphimon…_ Eric smiled. Nobody was looking at him, otherwise they would have noticed how sinister it was.

* * *

Eddy arrived at the Imperial Fortress. He didn't like being there from the moment he stepped into the courtyard where they landed and his brother split from his partner.

"Oh, glad you made it back," Damien said, walking into the courtyard and seeing his master. "Are you Zack or the other one?"

"My name is Eddy McGee and don't you forget it!"

"Or at least that's what he'd like to think," Derek said. "From now on, though, he's known as Eddy Guevara. Oh, and his middle name's still Skipper." Eddy's brother laughed after saying the last part. With all the confusion about the existence of Zack and Jessica, Eddy never bothered to ask what his real father's last name was. Still, he felt it was a longshot to think that his brother would be using their real last name right now. "By the way, take Pipsqueak to his quarters." Eddy's brother gave his idiotic, half-angry smirk to Damien. "Don't worry, Pipsqueak, we'll get to play Uncle tomorrow. For now, I'm just too tired to do that." He yawned while walking away.

"So, what do you want to talk about on the way to your room? How's Robert Kanker doing these days? From what I hear, he wasn't with your group."

"Oh, you mean your brother?" Eddy asked.

"_Blobbert_ is not my brother, idiot," Damien retorted calmly.

* * *

Eric's group made it to the shore of the Northern Socialist Republic on Directory Continent in record time the following morning. They were glad not to have run into any enemy Digimon, especially since Shoutmon told them that there were numerous Megas running amok in the army that was commencing the invasion of the Empire.

Things were going good until Shoutmon noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He walked over to a section of the forest they were in that looked vastly different between two trees and looked around the trees. "Well, what do you know? It's a portal to the Dark Ocean."

"You sure about that?" Eric asked.

Shoutmon nodded. "Look inside. There's a dark tower in there. Those were used to turn the Dark Ocean into its current state. So after this I'll just need to find a portal to the human world and then I'll be there."

"Why don't we follow him?" Jimmy asked.

"It sounds like a good idea to me," the pig-like Tokomon said from on top of Jimmy's head.

"I'm not so sure that would be a good idea. The Dark Ocean is full of those Dark Towers that inhibit Digivolution. Heck, I'm not even sure if Biomerging would work in such an environment," Eric objected.

"Why don't you try it out? Testing things is a good idea, after all," Crusadermon suggested.

Eric walked into the portal along with Shoutmon and Gabumon. He then held out his digivice and said the magic words: "Biomerge Activate!"

It worked.

Eric had this idea that if anything, the inability to perform any other type of Digivolution would decrease the amount of time it takes to biomerge.

* * *

Kevin's digivice started beeping from inside Dagomon. He realized he had no time to answer it since he was busy trying to cut his way through the surprisingly difficult material the tentacles were made of with his pocket knife.

He got himself free and looked at the man in the wall.

"I'm going to get you out of here," he said, taking the knife to the tentacles that were attached. "There seems to be an art to cutting these things, you know."

"Yeah? Too bad I didn't bring one of those things."

"I carry this thing all the time and I almost forgot I had it. Dude, if only I remembered it before the others left. Then again, it's not as if I would have gotten out of those things in time, anyway."

"What about your digivice?" the First Tamer asked.

"Oh, yeah," Kevin took off the digivice and looked at it. "It says that there's another Tamer in this world. Can't get any info on him though other than a black and bronze digivice, though."

* * *

A/N: Yeah, even though there aren't any levels in Xros Wars, Shoutmon's a rookie and ΩShoutmon's his Mega form in this story. Funny, I've always wanted a Shoutmon in this story, just not as a partner Digimon since he has no intermediate forms between him and his Mega form. Before, I was considering making him an innkeeper or something crazy like that.

This chapter also begins Eric's character arc that eventually sends him where he ends up in my other fic. Oh, and we see even more how much of a jerk Damien truly is. Hey, at least he gets Lee a makeover, though you didn't see her in this chapter (she was in the last one). Then there's Kevin, who's about to make a major mistake that'll haunt him through the next arc, even though he also about to make Growlmon evolve.


	30. The Autumn of the Patriarch

Chapter 30: The Autumn of the Patriarch

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

_"What's the plan?" the chubby, black-haired kid asked. He was wearing a red shirt and some blue jeans. Since it was cold outside, he was wearing a black jacket._

_ "Nothing much," another, far skinnier kid with brown hair said. "I was just thinking of hiking a bit just to get out of this old apartment complex." He smiled a bit._

_ "Alright, Ted, just lead the way." The brown-haired kid headed down the stairs of the building. It was old and rustic. Then again, none of them had a lot of money.  
"Hear Roger's moving."_

_ "That stinks." They walked out of the old brown building._

_ "He's moving into a house. It's supposed to be in like Cimarron Hills or something."_

_ "Where's that at?"_

_ "South end of town. South-east actually. At least it's not Falcon."_

_ "Or Grand Junction. I lived there for a bit and I hated the place."_

_ "How could it have been worse than here?" They had walked across the parking lot and were at a crosswalk. Ted pressed the button on the post, shivering from the cold. Being late February, that was to be expected._

_ "At least here all my friends live by me. There I lived like two miles out of town in an old rental house in some subdivision called Paradise Hills or something. Nobody my age lived there."_

_ The light changed and Ted crossed the street, his friend following. "Yeah, that does suck."_

_ "My mom says I can't say that word."_

_ Ted burst laughing. "At least I didn't swear."_

_ "Got a point there, man."_

_ "So, how long does your mom got?"_

_ "She's due."_

_ "I'm sorry. Enjoy your last days of being an only child. I remember when my little sister was born. She couldn't stop screaming, even in the middle of the night. So, boy or girl?"_

_ "Beats me. If it's a boy, they're naming him Edward. If it's a girl, they're naming her Monique."_

_ "Monique, as in Monica… Lewinski?"_

_ The two boys laughed at the immature joke. "Yeah, it won't be the same. I hope it's a boy."_

_ "Like I say, you'll hate having a younger sibling, Derek."_

_ "It'll be fun. I'll be a good big brother to him."_

_ The next day, his mother gave birth to twin boys._

* * *

Fourteen years later, one of them, the older of the two, found himself in the Imperial Palace. He was sure that he was going to have to confront his brother the next day, so he wanted to make sure his Digimon partner was well rested. "Okay, I want the best sleeping pills you've got," Eddy told the computer replicator in the wall, which immediately caused a white bottle of pills to materialize. Eddy pressed open the bottle and put a couple into his hand.

"Eddy, we're in the enemy's base. I shouldn't be sleeping right now."

"Here's the thing, Commandramon, we're probably going to be fighting my older brother tomorrow and you're going to need the strength to go to Mega."

"I know; that's why you made me eat earlier. Still, I don't like this place. I'm worried that Lee Kanker'll show up or something. Then there's that Damien guy. He gives me the creeps."

"Do you remember him from before?"

"That's the thing: he wasn't here before and now he's second to your brother. He also used to be partnered to my protégé, Impmon. You saw how that turned out. Heck, he didn't even turn into his normal perfect form of Baalmon when he fought Double D, Chaun and Robert."

"Don't worry. If I see my bro, I'll avoid him. It's the same with Damien."

"What are you thinking of doing while I sleep?"

"I could use some myself, come to think of it."

* * *

Eddy tried to sleep after Commandramon was out cold, even swallowing a couple of sleeping pills, but even so, he had a hard time doing so. Eventually he just gave up, getting up and looking at the time on the digital clock on the wall: 5:55 A.M.

He got up and just started wandering around, hoping not to meet his brother while he was at it.

_Crap, Zack, how did I get in this situation? Actually, how did you deal with this situation?_

He found it weird that his brother just let everybody go even though the demand Eddy made wasn't even remotely similar to the one he made. He wanted to make it out of the place alive, preferably with as few injuries as possible and with his dignity in tact.

That's why he wanted Commandramon to reach his Mega form. Zack was willing to force it on AeroVeedramon, which was a bad idea, especially from what Eddy heard about MortisVeedramon. The thought of a Mega form of such a Digimon made the heavy teenager's skin crawl.

Despite that, he was willing to do the same, even if he didn't acknowledge it.

He finally made it down to a lower level where there was a swimming pool. Since he didn't have swim trunks, he just went in his underwear.

He floated in the water, face up. He dozed off for a few minutes until he noticed the Goth kid looking at him from the edge of the water and then he stood up in the pool.

"What are you doing up this early in the morning?"

"Thought I'd go for a swim, but since you're here, that's not going to happen."

"So, how'd you get here, anyway?"

"How did I get in the digital world or in the court of the Emperor?"

"Both."

"The first one is that I woke up here. As far as the second scenario, I got rescued from a Chimeramon by some of the Emperor's Tamers. Helped them with a good strategy to defeat the thing."

"So, why do you hate Robert so much, David?" Eddy got up out of the pool and sat along the edge.

"How do you know that name? Ah, forget it. I'm not David here, anyway, I'm Damien."

"Whatever. Still, why do you hate him?"

"Simple, he's illegitimate, he shouldn't exist. It was wrong what his father did to create him and because of that, he should suffer."

"Man, that's harsh. Don't you think you should go after your dad for sleeping with his mom instead of putting all the blame on him?"

Damien rolled his eyes. "You don't get anything, do you? You don't know what it's like to have a half-sibling."

_How do you know I don't have a half-sibling?_ Eddy smiled. "Yeah, you've got a point there. But still, did you even give the guy a chance? Heck, Robert's a nice guy. He's got some rough spots, especially when he's angry, but you should talk to him, get to know him."

Damien chuckled and then burst into laughter. "You have no idea what this place is, do you?"

"The Imperial Fortress."

"No, the digital world. Don't you know, if it most likely doesn't exist, it doesn't? That's right; this is all a hallucination, a dream. Either that or we're stuck in the Matrix. We are all dreaming!"

"Eh, it sure as heck doesn't seem like a dream."

"Oh, but it is. Dreams seem real when you're dreaming them, you know?"

"Then why the heck are you such a dirtbag?"

"It's like a giant video game. What path do players like to take most often in games where you can choose your destiny? The Jedi or the Sith?"

"The Sith, I guess."

"Because it's the most fun. That's why I'm like this. It's all a dream and I'm most likely in a coma on a hospital bed, wasting away. It's a shame, since I'm supposed to be filling out college applications soon."

Eddy looked at him in disbelief. "How old are you again?"

"Seventeen."

"You're crazy, you know that right?"

"Yes, I know."

* * *

The trip back was uneventful, except for the time he passed by a strangely dressed female Digimon that looked at him strangely. She seemed to check him out, actually, though he dodged the glance. He pulled out his digivice and checked it; the Digimon was Lilithmon, a Mega Level.

_How many Megas are in this place?_ he asked himself.

Commandramon was awake when Eddy got to his quarters. "Ready for breakfast?" Eddy asked.

* * *

A few minutes later, they were down in the cafeteria, chowing down. "Okay, remember, you need to eat a lot to have lots of energy to digivolve."

"I know. Now, in all honesty, you're supposed to be half the biomerge so you should be eating as much as I am."

"I am," Eddy said as he took a bite into his large pancake.

Looking around, he noticed a large number of Digimon that looked like royalty or military: PrinceMamemon, Starmon (both versions), an Angemon was there for some strange reason, King and QueenChessmon, Bastemon, and finally the Lilithmon he saw earlier. He didn't like her. She seemed too familiar.

Then the doors opened, a Centaurumon walking in. "Everyone, your Emperor." The entire room full of Digimon rose and bowed except for Eddy.

"You might want to give honor to the emperor, kid," the PrinceMamemon said.

Eddy glared at the Mega level Digimon that talked to him and shrugged.

"How's it going today, Pipsqeak?" Eddy's brother asked, sitting down at the same table. "Ready for Uncle?"

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Don't say I didn't warn you," PrinceMamemon said before walking away.

"Yeah, just let me eat." Zassomon came by with a large bowl of oatmeal for Derek, who just started digging away. "So, want anything to drink, like a martini?"

"Hey, isn't that alcoholic?"

"Yeah."

"You drink alcohol in the morning?"

"Nope. Heck, I don't even drink alcohol period."

That really surprised Eddy. He often imagined his brother getting wasted on the weekends partying. Actually, come to think of it, he had no idea what his brother did on the weekends.

Eddy quickly finished his meal and ran out of the mess hall with Commandramon. "Remember, Pipsqueak, I know where you are!" Eddy could hear his brother's laughing from the middle of the cafeteria. It turns out that he didn't even eat there most of the time and he only went there that one time to psych Eddy out.

Eddy ran into Lilithmon after a few minutes of running through the corridors. The female Digimon smiled at him, fangs glistening.

"Eddy, that's Lilithmon. You know what type of Digimon she is?" Commandramon asked.

"Yeah, Eddy, what kind of Digimon am I? It's been a long time."

Eddy recognized her. "Lee?"

The Digimon split in two: Lee Kanker and BlackTailmon. Lee was dressed differently, wearing better clothes and having her hair come down instead of up. Her hair was somewhat straighter and went down to her shoulders. She was wearing a revealing outfit consisting of a purple skirt and a red shirt. Unlike before, her legs were actually shaved.

"So, how about we go on a little date," Lee suggested, walking up to Eddy and putting her arms around him and kissing him, his eyes bugged out and open. Lee noticed that. Eddy had to admit that her breath wasn't as bad and, looking at the girl's teeth, she had them either whitened or replaced.

"Sorry, not interested." Eddy said, pushing himself away from her. The two of them heard a voice from behind them.

"Why is that girl out of the prison cells?" Derek yelled at Damien.

"I don't know." Damien said, running toward the girl and grabbing her by the arm, whispering in her ear: "Just play along with this." He pulled her away but not before she blew a kiss at Eddy who shuddered.

"So, Pipsqueak, how about we play our little game, huh?"

"Commandramon?" Eddy inquired. The Digimon responded with a nod and the two ran away. It was time and they had to make the best of it. Eddy knew where the stadium was in the fortress, so he headed straight there.

Damien let go of Lee. "You know you were supposed to keep hidden, right?" the boy asked.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. Derek just showed up out of nowhere."

"I tried to stop her from doing it but she just wouldn't listen," BlackTailmon said.

"So?" The two were in the computer room, Datamon's domain. "Datamon, where are you?"

Datamon turned around from his display. The battle between Eddy and Derek was about to start and it was on camera. "Yes, sire?"

"I need you for something." Then a Digimon came out from the top of Damien's shirt and latched itself onto Datamon. It immediately started exploiting the Digimon's weaknesses and soon Datamon was no more, absorbed into the small insect despite it being a fresh level Digimon. The Digimon then glowed and became its rookie form, resembling a pink praying mantis with massive scythes for hands.

Lee was frightened by the Digimon. _What did Damien get into this time?_ she wondered.

Damien sat down at Datamon's console with his partner Digimon standing right next to him. He typed in a few codes and then spoke into the microphone. "Tactimon, can you read me?"

_"Yes, what is it you want?"_

"You now have my authorization to dispose of the children that are with you. In addition, a squadron of the army will be headed to your location to kill any of them that try to escape."

_"Finally."_

* * *

Tactimon stopped in mid-step after his conversation with Damien.

"Oh, no, this does not look good, dudes," Nazz commented.

With that, the Mega-Level Samurai Digimon began his strike, stabbing into the ground and causing an earthquake. "Ichi-no-Tachi!"

* * *

Eddy realized he had one chance to defeat his brother easily. Once they entered the stadium, which was an enclosed arena surrounded by seats for spectators, Eddy pulled out his digivice and caused Commandramon to digivolve.

"Commandramon evolve… Sealsdramon!" Sealsdramon pulled out his knives, ready to strike at BlackAgumon once he ran through the doorway with Derek. His instructions were to delete BlackAgumon but leave Derek alone, since Derek was no match for Sealsdramon in the first place.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned since Derek slid a card as soon as he entered into the stadium with BlackAgumon: 'WarGreymon's shield'. Sealsdramon's attacks simply bounced off.

"Please, you can't say that I didn't see that coming, Pipsqueak," Derek told him. "It's time to play uncle."

"Sorry, bro, but I'm not in the mood. And stop calling me pipsqueak! Gosh, didn't you notice my growth spurt?"

"Yeah, you're now taller than your girlfriend." It took Eddy a brief second to tell that his brother was talking about Edd, but a second was all Derek needed as the man held out his digivice and digivolved his Digimon.

"BlackAgumon digivolve to… DarkTyrannomon!"

"So, how come your Digimon doesn't simply turn into BlackGreymon or whatever?" Eddy asked as the two dinosaurs rammed each other.

"Beats me. Man, if I knew that you were planning on a show like this, I would have had the aristocracy come and watch. Too bad, though." Eddy's brother gave him the same nasty smile he gave Edd when the sock-wearing boy confronted him.

Eddy wasn't afraid. He knew he was going to win either way. He just had to get Sealsdramon to the Mega Level in the worst case situation.

* * *

When Tactimon turned around to fight the kids, Veedramon had already digivolved involuntarily. Still, everyone was going to need to do their best.

"Wormmon Warp Evolve… JewelBeemon!"

"FanBeemon Warp Evolve… CannonBeemon!"

"Palmon Warp Evolve… Lillymon!"

"Kudamon Warp Evolve… Qilinmon!"

"Hawkmon Warp Evolve… Garudamon!"

"This is bad!" Zack commented. "We've been traveling all night and the Digimon have barely had a chance to rest."

"That's why Kudamon was sleeping around my neck," Edd said. "Of course, even Qilinmon can't take on an experienced mega on his own. Everybody! Attack while keeping the evasive!"

Nazz nodded followed by Chaun and May. Ed was too focused on the battle to notice Edd say anything and Zack was worried.

"Eddy's in the middle of something too," he said. "Otherwise Veemon wouldn't have digivolved."

"I realize that," Edd said. "Is everyone else's Digimon prepared for this?"

"I kept Wormmon on top of my head through the night," Chaun said.

"I held FanBeemon while we walked," May added.

"I held Palmon on my back," Nazz told Edd.

"Good. Most of the Digimon are well rested. Zack, are you ready to metamorphisize Veedramon?"

"You mean digivolve? Yeah? He may not be as rested as the others, but he should be fine." Zack held out his digivice and Veedramon found himself enveloped in a white light…

* * *

Sealsdramon was dodging fireballs more than attacking. Even though he was fast and strong, DarkTyrannomon was stronger by far.

Then he felt the light of evolution flow through him.

"Sealsdramon evolve… Tankdramon!"

Tankdramon found himself face to face with DarkTyrannomon. Unfortunately the speed advantage was lost. Tankdramon had to make it quick before DarkTyrannomon digivolved himself. "Gatling Blast," he yelled, shooting as much of his ammo at the black and orange dinosaur just as Derek held out his digivice and using the power of a newly formed blue card, digivolved his Digimon.

"DarkTyrannomon digivolve to… MetalTyrannomon!"

MetalTyrannomon had already taken most of the bullets when he appeared. "Hey, Pipsqueak, I would suggest getting into the metal viewing box behind you."

"Why?"

"This battle's going to be a doozy, I can tell. I know I don't mind messing with you a bit, but I don't want you dead." Derek immediately got into the box behind him and closed it while Eddy did the same. Tankdramon and MetalTyrannomon were locked into a wrestling match with each other it seemed, no one side gaining until MetalTyrannomon started to push Tankdramon back a little bit.

Tankdramon knew that his partner was in a safe spot that would guard him from most Perfect-level attacks so he didn't hold back. "Striver Cannon!" he yelled, shooting a shell from the back of his main body, which MetalTyrannomon grabbed and threw to the side, not knowing what was about to happen.

"Nuclear Laser!" he yelled, shooting a massive laser from his shoulder which Tankdramon's main body dodged. However, he received damage on his secondary body.

"Card Slash… Strength Plug-in A!" Eddy slashed, giving Tankdramon the necessary strength to toss MetalTyrannomon back just as the miniature nuke from the Striver Cannon attack finally exploded.

* * *

Outside the imperial fortress, the stadium could be seen exploding through the top. Due to the sides being reinforced to withstand nuclear explosions, those didn't come down.

* * *

AeroVeedramon unleashed his Dragon Impulse attack on Tactimon who had his sword drawn. Every other Digimon there was unleashing their most powerful attack at the same time, but the only ones that seemed to have any effect were AeroVeedramon's attack and Qilinmon's.

Zack had his eyes closed. "Eddy's fighting Derek. This is bad. Hey, Chaun, ready to unleash Imperialdramon?" he asked.

"You bet, man. I was wondering what was taking so long." Chaun tossed his digivice to Zack who linked it to his. This was going to be a long battle. He only hoped that Eddy didn't lose his.

Tactimon drew his sword, causing a distant star to collapse. Then he got ready to strike.

"AeroVeedramon!"

"JewelBeemon!"

"Jogress evolve… Imperialdramon!" Imperialdramon now hovered over the battlefield along with the other fliers and started to unleash his attack. "Positron Cannon!"

"Knowledge of the Swift!" Qilinmon yelled, cloning himself and striking Tactimon who struck the clones one by one as Imperialdrmon's attack struck him.

Tactimon was smoking from the attack but he was still intact. "Is that the best you can do?"

"Oh crap…" Zack muttered to himself. He looked at his digivice which was starting to glow black. His eyes seemed to bulge.

Eddy was on the verge of a dark Digivolution…

Eddy pushed the door open. The entire stadium was completely trashed. He looked over at his partner who was still standing. Apparently he was immune to his own attack which was good news.

Eddy looked over at MetalTyrannomon who had devolved back to BlackAgumon. Had he won?

His brother didn't think so. "Biomerge activate…" he said.

"BlackAgumon biomerge to… BlackWarGreymon."

"Tankdramon, you've gotta do another Striver Cannon!"

"Are you sure?" Eddy nodded. Then the tank unleashed the attack, causing another explosion. Eddy didn't have enough time then to take cover but he didn't need to. Both of the digivices that were on his person were glowing and protected him with a shield.

BlackWarGreymon was hardly scratched by the attack. It was obvious that he had serious skin damage from it, but other than that he was fine.

"You see pipsqueak, you can't win," his brother said from the data-sphere within him. He was floating completely naked, viewing analyzer info. "It's obvious that your Digimon has been damaged severely from my last attack. Surrender now and I won't have to delete him."

Eddy wasn't about to do that. "Tankdramon, we need to biomerge, now!"

"I realize that."

"No ifs ands or buts about it, now! If not, my brother's going to kill you and then torture me." Eddy held out his digivice. "Biomerge Activate!" he yelled, nothing happening. "What gives?"

His crest was already starting to glow black, but it wasn't time yet. BlackWarGreymon prepped an energy attack with his claws. "Terra Destroyer!" he yelled unleashing it.

"Now or else!" Eddy yelled, anger running through his voice. Tankdramon just dodged the oncoming attack from BlackWarGreymon. "We've gotta digivolve!" Eddy held out his digivice. _Come on! _"Biomerge Activate!" That time it worked, but it was a corrupt evolution.

* * *

Zack separated the Jogressed Digimon after they received a serious injury and then combined them again. The black light was still coming from his digivice. He wondered what was happening.

Then a sharp pain flowed through his body as the darkness over took him. He felt forced to hold out his digivice and then felt a burst of pain as he split into millions of particles of data that flew into Imperialdramon.

The ancient dragon changed form, becoming more humanoid in appearance. What would normally be his face in his dragon mode became a chest piece, his form became bipedal and his hind legs lengthened. The cannon that was originally on his back moved to his right arm. The colors changed to, the armor becoming black and grey.

"Imperialdramon Fighter Mode?" Chaun wondered, feeling hot all the sudden. "Dang, Zack, how'd you do that?" Zack was obviously not there, though, and none of the kids could see what happened to him.

"Is it just me, or is there something odd about the coloration of Imperialdramon's new form?" Edd asked.

"Oh, man, you're right. He looks…" Chaun opened up his digivice and looked at the Digimon Analyzer. "Oh crap."

"Don't tell me…"

"That's not Imperialdramon. That's BlackImperialdramon."

"A corrupt evolution… but how…" Then it dawned on Edd. "Eddy! He's been forced into conflict with his brother! Good lord, I should have accompanied him to prevent that."

"You're saying that…" Chaun realized what happened, though not noticing the black steam coming from his skin. "Oh crap… he forced a Matrix Evolution!"

"You mean a biomerge, right?"

"You know I don't use dub terms."

"Um, dude, isn't the situation kind of serious for talking about that?" Nazz asked.

BlackImperialdramon Fighter Mode faced Tactimon who stood there taking in the sight. "Finally, a worthy opponent."

Then BlackImperialdramon held out his positron laser and fired through the Samurai's chest, obliterating his digi-core and causing him to disintegrate. After that, the Digimon loaded his enemy's data and turned toward the others.

* * *

A field of black and purple energy engulfed Eddy and Commandramon, causing Eddy to scream out in pain as his body fused with his partner's and reached the Mega Level.

Derek on the other hand was shocked. True, he had caused a corrupted evolution to the Perfect Level when he went to the digital world for the first time, causing his Digimon to go from Greymon to SkullGreymon, and true, BlackAgumon was technically a corrupt evolution, albeit one that was permanent, but this was too much.

_I drove him to this… Oh man, what have I done?_ The screams chilled him to the bone and as Darkdramon flew straight at him with his lance positioned, he realized that this was going to be a far more difficult battle than expected. When he first faced Darkdramon after deposing Mugendramon, the Digimon didn't have such speed. Not to mention, the power was massive.

"Gigastick Lance!" the Digimon yelled, positioning the lance, which for some reason was on his left arm instead of his right, to strike, launching the attack at BlackWarGreymon.

_If I don't want him to kill me, I'll have to strike. _"Dramon Killer!" BlackWarGreymon positioned himself to meet with Darkdramon. Thus began the hardest battle of their life. Now only one thought came through his mind other than protecting himself from Eddy.

_Did I go too far?_

* * *

A/N: Yeah, complicated. I have to say, this was a heck of a fun chapter to write. Gotta say, this chapter has a ton of Moments of Awesome for me.

Yeah, I'm making Darkdramon the 'Dark Digivolution of the season,' since, well, every leader has to have one. Heck, the only season (Adventure 02) where the 'leader' didn't have one had a really dull leader (though Daisuke had potential if they would have just developed him). What's the 'True Evolution'? Well, you've already seen a glimpse of him in a previous chapter (the statues). That's not to say that Darkdramon won't be used since he's got a massive speed advantage over his counterpart, he's just so dang hard to control. Hey, Chaosmon has to appear sometime, right (I've got that planned).

And then there's the matter of the Mode Change. It makes sense and a biomerge actually helped in a mode change in the anime one time. (spoilers ahead) In Digimon Savers, Akahiro Kurata converted himself to data and merged himself with Belphemon Sleep Mode to become Belphemon Rage Mode.


	31. Out of the Darkness

Chapter 31: Out of the Darkness

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own, pipsqueak.

* * *

_Derek didn't know what to do. He was at his grandparents, bored, and his mother was currently working to pay the bills since his dad left them. True, she had a benefactor in the name of Trotsky, but he was on a business trip at the time and could only pay for everything when he was around. Derek didn't like him much, though._

_ Like most of the time… Derek looked outside. It was a beautiful day, he just had to go out there. Of course, his grandparents had to live in a retirement community, so there weren't any kids around. That was a pain. Not to mention how since he was only nine, his grandparents didn't let him go anywhere._

_ Soon, though, Trotsky came by. It was completely unexpected. Since his mom had only known the man for a month and since it was so soon after his dad's disappearance, the Grandparents were incredibly wary of him. He claimed that he just wanted to spend some time with Derek, who of course wanted to be as far away from him as possible, but that wasn't going to happen. Something about him wasn't right. Another thing that made Derek suspicious was that the man started giving his mother money so soon after his dad disappeared. He wouldn't have been surprised if the man somehow killed his dad with one of his science experiments or something._

_ Now if only he could figure out a way to make tons of money so that his mom didn't have to work so much or accept all the money from this 'benefactor'. More like malefactor. The man seemed kind of disdainful of the kids, seeming to want them out of his life._

_ Derek decided to brainstorm a bit, eventually drawing up plans for a lemonade stand. As soon as he got home, going with Trotsky, he attempted to go and set things up. However, the man stopped him by pulling him by the sleeve of his red shirt. "What are you doing, boy?"_

_ "I'm going to set up a lemonade stand for the kids in the neighborhood to buy from."_

_ "A Lemonade stand, eh? That's the oldest trick in the book. Why not try something more original? Besides, we could work on it together."_

_ Derek didn't know what to think of the whole situation. Something about it was completely wrong. The man went into the garage that was on the bottom floor of the apartment they were living in and looked around. "Ah, that's what you could do," Trotsky commented, looking at an old tire that was on the ground next to where the car would normally go, "A tire swing. Then you just have to charge 25 cents a swing."_

_ "That's an old tire that got several nails stuck in it while my dad was headed to Falcon one time. It wouldn't be safe. Come to think of it, why does my dad still have it here?"_

_ "So? Maybe you could take the nails out."_

_ "Still, it's really greasy. Also, where would I hang it? There aren't any trees around. There aren't even very many kids here."_

_ "Go where work takes you. Maybe I can teach you a few more things, like how to run a pyramid scheme. What do you say?"_

_ "Sounds like a good idea." Derek had no idea what a pyramid scheme was, though he would eventually use such illegal methods to do things like run a lawn mowing service._

_ Of course, whenever Trotsky helped him and he fouled up, the man would punish him by beating, something that his mother didn't learn about until later, just before his father came back._

* * *

The memory went through his mind like a ton of bricks. Not that it stopped him from dodging Darkdramon's Gigastick Lance and digging his Dramon Killer into the enemy Digimon's chest. It was an attack that was super effective and should have at least disabled the enemy Digimon, but it didn't. Derek didn't notice, though.

"You didn't stand a chance, pipsqueak. This entire battle is so one sided it ain't even funny. Why don't you just give up?" While Derek was lecturing Eddy, Darkdramon unleashed another attack, creating a massive orb of dark energy and unleashing it.

"Dark Roar!" BlackWarGreymon didn't have time to react, barely pulling off his wings to form a shield when he got hit head on by the attack. After that, he was on the ground, smoldering from the hit while Eddy unleashed another attack.

"Gigastick Lance!" Before Darkdramon could hit him, BlackWarGreymon got out of the way, despite being in a lot of pain.

"Crap! We've gotta change forms!" Derek told BlackWarGreymon from inside his data-sphere. "He's gone completely berserk. You know, I've only read about Dark Biomerges in fanfiction, not on the actual show. I didn't think they'd be this insane!"

"I hear you, master," BlackAgumon responded. "It's definitely time for Slide Evolution. Which form should we become?"

"Gaiomon, of course. Are you stupid or something? Mugendramon's nowhere near as strong as Darkdramon."

"Got it."

"BlackWarGreymon Slide Evolution…" BlackWarGreymon was enveloped in a white light as he changed forms. "… Gaiomon!"

* * *

Anubimon watched on as BlackImperialdramon Fighter Mode formed. He was supposed to give Zack his replacement digivice, but that wasn't going to happen yet. _Why did you keep that flaw in the digivices? You knew it was going to end up like this._ Of course, it had been years since that first meeting, thousands for Anubimon himself.

_Funny how the twins remind me so much of him. Actually, Derek could have been like him, if life hadn't have gotten in the way, minus the perfectionism, of course. That seemed to always get in the way of the two of us, even though most of our problems were actually my fault._

Anubimon's reflections were interrupted by his younger partner Kuzuhamon. "Sir, it appears the tamers need our help."

"I realize that." Anubimon spread out his wings and flew over the kids. _I don't know what would happen if I were defeated, but I have to protect these kids. They may be the only hope in the end._

* * *

The darkness started to burn through Chaun, giving him the feeling like he was on fire. He screamed out in agony as he felt it move through his body and made an attempt to dissipate it by grabbing the source of the burning: his digivice, and dropping it onto the ground.

"Dude, are you alright," Nazz asked, coming up behind him and putting her right hand on his shoulder, now bare from being burned by the dark energy. Actually, his shirt was torn to threads.

"I… think… so," Chaun replied, panting with each utterance. The Digimon were each having a hard time defending themselves from the onslaught of BlackImperialdramon's attacks. In the beginning, they had Garudamon, CannonBeemon, Lillymon and Qilinmon. Unfortunately, Garudamon just got pulverized by BlackImperialdramon's Positron Cannon and reverted back to Poromon who was picked up by Qilinmon in the nick of time.

Then the unexpected happened just after that. A winged jackal-headed humanoid came down from the heavens and crossed its thick arms, creating a shield around the party.

"What the heck, dude? Who are you?" Nazz asked.

"Anubimon, Mega Level, Vaccine Attribute. I never thought I'd see one of those," Edd commented after reading the analyzer screen on his digivice.

"Don't worry, I'm here to help," Anubimon said. "Unfortunately, this shield won't last much longer. Kuzuhamon! Use the separation ritual!"

"But Sire, there's a chance you'll be affected too," the purple-armored fox shaman said, landing slowly behind BlackImperialdramon Fighter Mode, who turned around to face her with his gun.

"Just do it. I already took the necessary precautions to prevent that from happening. Pyramid Power!"

BlackImperialdramon got distracted by the massive upside-down pyramid forming up above him so that he pointed his gun at it and fired, failing to realize Kuzuhamon performing her ritual, singing in the process.

"Wow, it's so beautiful," Nazz commented.

Edd was confused by the whole thing. "What is this ritual? Some sort of magic? That seems…"

"In reality, it's just a form of advanced programming that just appears to be magic," Anubimon responded. "In my long lifetime, I have learned thousands of such 'spells', utilizing them when needed."

"Intriguing."

"Cool, so you're like Harry Potter," Ed said.

"No," Anubimon objected, rolling his eyes in the process.

But this wasn't the time to be thinking about such things. Anubimon braced himself, almost separating in the process. The technique that Kuzuhamon was using worked on both Jogressed Digimon and Biomerged Digimon, such as Imperialdramon.

Imperialdramon split into two in-training level Digimon and a human, Zack, all of whom were completely out cold when the ritual finished.

"There, all done," Kuzuhamon said. "I guess we can leave after you give him the digivice."

"Not just yet. These kids just finished an exhausting battle and now an entire faction of the Imperial Army is headed this way. We should at least escort them to the nearest town."

"Um, if you will excuse me," Edd said, "Eddy's brother, I mean the Emperor said that we were to go to the town of Star City to find a Zeppelinmon. He then said that we had to use that to leave imperial territory."

"And why do you think that's a good idea?" Chaun asked, picking up his digivice and partner.

"I just have a hunch," Edd said.

"We'll do it. In a worse-case scenario, we can defend you," Anubimon told them.

"Hmm… Star City huh?" Kuzuhamon asked. "I think I remember going there. There's a strong anti-imperial sentiment in that town, and the SuperStarmon running the place would be happy to see you. I can teleport you there if you want."

"But first, after obtaining Zeppelinmon, we're going to need to go to the Imperial Fortress," Edd said.

"That wouldn't be wise," Anubimon said. "The Imperial Fortress is to be destroyed in a matter of minutes, once Eddy defeats his brother in a fair fight with his true Mega form."

A somber silence fell upon the group. "No way, dude, you can't be serious," Nazz said.

Anubimon didn't respond. It wouldn't have been in the interests of either the chosen children or the order to divulge them of their escape plan for Eddy and Derek.

* * *

Darkdramon found himself having a harder time with the new form of Gaiomon, barely managing to parry against the bulkier Digimon in time. Gaiomon resembled a cross between BlackWarGreymon and a samurai, having some trademarks of a Greymon subspecies and wearing black samurai armor.

Darkdramon couldn't dodge one kick from the powerful enemy Digimon, which resulted in the dragon being tossed backwards into a wall.

"Surrender now, Eddy, and our game will be easy. I'll even spare your partner Digimon." Darkdramon got up easily, but instead of lunging forward to strike Gaiomon as was expected, he split back into a passed out Eddy and Commandramon before falling through a hole that wasn't there before. The hole then closed back up.

* * *

Eddy woke up in the middle of a dark room. Or at least he thought it was a room. There weren't any walls to speak of, though, and it seemed to go on forever. Mist was rising from the floor and there were five figures, talking.

"This flaw you introduced could be damaging to the tamers," one voice said, "It wasn't even in the original D-Arc that I used."

"I realize that. Still, I've got a reason for introducing it."

"What is that?"

"I might be able to prevent him from getting a dark evolution. If he realizes the consequences of doing such a thing, then he won't do it."

"How are you sure?"

Then the figures disappeared. Eddy wondered what that whole thing meant in the first place. Then a new figure appeared in front of him. "Wisemon?"

"Yes, Eddy," Wisemon replied. "It turns out you have performed a dark evolution."

"What else is new, Captain Obvious?"

Commandramon stood up beside him. "Man, that hurt."

"Dark evolutions are not to be taken lightly, Eddy. As it is, most team leaders for the Chosen have made the same mistake you have, though unlike you, their actions didn't affect others so directly."

"So, who were those guys discussing the digivices?" Eddy asked.

"They were a group that put together the digivices. I can't reveal their identities just yet, since the answer would just cause more questions at the moment."

Eddy hated how Wisemon wouldn't give him any answers. He felt he was stuck watching Lost, only it was real life.

"So, why the heck did you take me here?" Eddy asked.

"Yeah, who are you and what do you want?" Commandramon added, pointing his gun for added effect.

"Like I said in the past, I am a member of an order that is charged with helping the chosen of this world and directing them so that they can achieve the best possible outcome. I have been monitoring you in Peach Creek ever since you arrived there and I was the one that brought you all together, you, Kevin, Jonny, Eddward, Ed, Nazz, and Jimmy. I even had to build a group around your brother in a time of need six years ago."

"Wait, you built my brother's team around my brother?" Eddy asked in shock. "Now, hold up, how does that make any sense? He's a sadistic psychopath that gets pleasure out of hurting people. Heck, he got even worse six years ago."

"Yes, that's right. However, he wasn't always that way. In fact, up until then, he was much like you were a year ago, except more violent. Then, after coming back from the digital world, he became the mask."

"Wait, are you saying that he was the same as I was? That's stupid!"  
"And yet, that was the case."

"Okay, who made him like that?"

"It was a combination of things. Your parents were unhappily married and your father had an alcohol problem. Eventually, your mother had an affair after your father had disappeared for awhile. The man she had an affair with secretly abused your brother while teaching him unscrupulous methods of earning money. He even encouraged your brother to treat his friends that way, rewarding him for that sort of behavior. The man even poisoned you and Zack, causing serious health problems in the two of you. He affected Zack the worst, bringing the boy to the brink of death. You were able to be stabilized, but eventually certain health problems would have come up, killing you as well. These health problems even contributed to your shortness."

Eddy felt a combination of shock and anger. "Okay, tell me who did that!"

"Unfortunately, I cannot as you will eventually have to face him."

"And another thing: if you think that I'm going to hold back just because my brother had a screwed up childhood, forget it."

"I do not expect you to." Wisemon looked at Commandramon and then back at Eddy. "I just bade you to question why you fight your brother."

"Simple, he's gonna have to pay for all that he did for me over all those years."

Wisemon let that answer sink in for a few seconds, taking a deep breath in the process. "And that is the problem that this dark evolution revealed."

Eddy looked at the Digimon, dumbfounded. "What?"  
"It makes sense to me," Commandramon said. "Here's the thing, we're pretty close to being able to perform our true biomerge. True, your brother forced it on us. However, motive on the part of the person evolving is the important part. Also, I can't be forced along. I have to have full confidence in my partner for the merge to be successful."

Eddy raised an eyebrow. "How did you know all that?"

"Before becoming your partner, I trained Derek to biomerge so that he could defeat Mugendramon."

Eddy let that sink in for a second. "So, I need to change my motives somehow to be able to achieve our true form? What the heck is the true form, anyway? I thought Darkdramon was."

"That is something you will figure out. Darkdramon is the most common form for Tankdramon to evolve into, but that is partially because of the destructive nature of most Tankdramons' lives. You are right that you need to change your motives. Your motives for going with your brother were good, and since he wanted you and only you anyway, it worked for their benefit. However, you eventually started fighting for the wrong reason. Your brother has affected the lives of more people than just you. Just ask Zack or even Jessica, since the girl was separated from her brother. There are also others such as Jonny and Garrett to consider."

"Jonny…" Eddy hadn't thought of him in a long time. "The Gourd…"

"Ultimately, your brother was not the cause of him assuming that identity, but he did send him to File Island, primarily since he thought the boy was useless because of his mental instability. Thankfully, he found a pair of friends there to replace me after we separated."

"You weren't ever around…" Then it hit Eddy. "No way."

"Yes, your newfound deduction ability has served you right. For the past fourteen years, I have been monitoring your cul-de-sac under the alias of Plank, communicating with Jonny telepathically and only intervening directly in dire situations, sometimes in line with your own character flaws. You see, unlike your brother, you have a high level of endurance you wouldn't have had otherwise."

"So, why me and why my brother? Why couldn't you have built the teams around other kids?"  
"You will find out the answers very soon. In fact, after this battle, you will meet the first tamer and then your questions will be answered partially. Ultimately, though, it was not his involvement that made us choose you. Someone else chose you."

"Hah, what the heck does this first tamer guy look like, anyway?"

Suddenly, a hologram appeared in front of Eddy of what looked to be a middle-aged man with a face that looked familiar to Eddy, like a straight-haired John Belushi. He was bulky, but not fat and on top of that, he had black hair and was wearing a green shirt with a blue undershirt and some grey shorts.

"What the-? Where did you get this picture from so quick and how old is this guy anyway?"

"He just happens to have a Facebook profile, partially to advertise his window-washing business, and he is in his early forties."

"Sounds a little old to be a Tamer, don't you think?"

"Perhaps. Not everyone who has been partnered with a Digimon is a kid. In fact, in one reality, that was adapted into your universe as Digimon Savers or Data-Squad, there are adults far older than this one that were given Digimon. It is a bit easier to sink in if you realize that he was in his twenties when he got pushed into the digital world in the first place."

"So, why do you think this guy will help us, anyway?"

"He has things on the line, himself. Well, the time has arrived for me to send you back. Remember what I told you about motives, Eddy. By the way, your cousin says hi."

"Huh," was Eddy's only response before guessing wrong that Wisemon was talking about Garrett. Not that he was getting any answers, mind you. He fell through the hole again, Commandramon right behind him. Strangely, Gaiomon was still in the same spot. It seemed that time didn't pass while Wisemon talked to him.

"Well that was quick. You fell through the floor and straight through the ceiling a second later. Let me guess, Wisemon decided to screw with your head," Eddy's brother taunted through the Mega-level Digimon. "I take it you're going to surrender now, huh pipsqueak?"

Eddy felt a pang of frustration looking at his brother, balling up his fist in the process. Then he calmed down. "No. That ain't gonna happen. Oh, and stop calling me pipsqueak."

"Huh, pipsqueak, I didn't quite hear you."

"I'm going to beat you in about five seconds. Just watch."

"Yeah, with Eddy's newfound knowledge, he's going to beat the crap out of you!" Commandramon said.

"Man, I'm going to have to shut that annoying thing up," Derek said.

"That 'annoying thing' is my partner. By the way, Commandramon, I'm sorry for forcing you to evolve."

"Don't worry, Eddy, I understand. It was mostly this guy's fault anyway."

"By the way bro, I'm going to beat you, not for me, but for Zack, for my friends, for Garrett, for Jonny, for the first Tamer, and last but not least, for Jessica!" Eddy's crest started to shine. He also felt a strange heat coming from his digivice, which he detached from his belt. It was cracked through the screen but at the same time it was glowing. Eddy's hair was flowing at the same time he looked at it.

Then it changed to the newer model with a black and gold color scheme. _This is your new digivice, Eddy. Now you can digivolve without worrying about Zack's Digimon doing the same thing,_ Eddy heard Wisemon say to him telepathically. The guy was definitely Plank.

There was a circular status bar surrounding a rectangular bar. The rectangular bar was only about 20% full but the circular bar around the edges was filling up so that it was a quarter full… then three-eighths.

"Yeah, right. Man, I don't even know half the people who you were talking about, anyway."

"Ready Commandramon?"

His partner Digimon nodded, smiling at the same time.

The bar was three-quarters full… then seven-eighths… then… light…

A helix came up from the ground that Eddy and Commandramon were both on, engulfing both of them in a blinding white light.

"You've gotta be joking," Eddy's brother said.

* * *

**BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Biomerge Activate!" Eddy said, holding out his digivice, which had a circle on the screen with a pair of arrows moving around. He held the digivice to his heart, causing fractal code to cover his body.

"Commandramon Biomerge to…" Eddy's naked body fell backwards into his Digimon as the two became one. Commandramon's hands were disintegrated and replaced with black armored arms with gold trim, his stubby feet with black and gold armored feet and long legs, and his chest with heavily muscled black armor. On top of that he had golden shoulder pads and golden lines throughout his armor.

Eddy's face and upper chest looked on before being switched with Commandramon's head which was in turn replaced by Sealsdramon and Tankdramon's heads before switching to a golden armored head that matched the shape of the Digimon's reptilian head.

For the finale of the sequence, the new humanoid armored dragon Digimon with a pair of grey wings in the shape of a cape held out a massive gun and shot all around him, devastating the rocky terrain he was in before yelling out his name, something that appeared at that moment in English and Japanese lettering in the background.

"Defendramon!"

"Defendramon?" Eddy's brother mused from inside his data-sphere. "What kind of crappy Digimon is that? Sure ain't appeared on the show or anything. Sounds like something out of a crappy fanfiction."

"Derek! Your reign of terror on the populace of the digital world has come to an end. Now you will repent for the sins you have committed against this world and your own family."

Defendramon didn't answer, deciding to just transform his left forearm into a shield-blade, kind of in answer to Darkdramon's Gigastick Lance, even sharing a similar name. "Gigastick Blade!" Defendramon charged, extending a blade of pure, golden energy.

Gaiomon ran towards him himself, getting ready to attack with his own twisted blades.

* * *

A/N: Well, next week is the penultimate chapter of Empire. After the story is finished, I'm going to take a break so I can plan out the following arc, involving Dagomon and a few other surprises. Of course, I know how to start it and how to end it; I just need to plan out the middle phases. If you're wondering, the final title I've decided on for it is Ragnarök. Why? Well, you're going to have to read it to find out.

Hope you didn't think I over-extended myself by creating Defendramon. I figured that Commandramon was going to have a dark Digivolution at some point and that Darkdramon was going to be it, so I had to figure out an alternate Mega form. Ironically, I drew a picture of him, though it doesn't really match his current design. Maybe when I can, I'll draw a better one. Much like Commandramon, this one has a design somewhat inspired by the Agumon line, though with influence from Darkdramon.


	32. The Sorrows of Empire

Chapter 32: The Sorrows of Empire

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own. The title of this chapter is inspired by a Star Trek novel which in turn was inspired by the title of a book on political science… yeah.

A/N: This has got to be the single longest chapter I've ever written for any story except for an unpublished pilot.

* * *

Kevin was about to finish cutting through the tentacles that were holding the first tamer in place when his digivice started to vibrate. At first he didn't know what it was, but then he looked at it, noting the lavender light coming from it. Then he looked at the crest around the man's neck.

"No way. That's my crest too," Kevin said in astonishment. He knew that it was time so he proceeded to grab his digivice and open it up.

"Growlmon, can you hear me?" he asked.

_"Yeah, Kevin. I'm trying to stay away from the octopus-man but he's too fast."_

"You think you can evolve to Perfect?"

* * *

"What, you can do that?" Growlmon asked, running from the Cthulhu knockoff that was pursuing him.

_"I found a crest and I'm making it glow."_

"That's great Kevin!"

_"You ready?"_

Growlmon turned around to face the Digimon that can't be described. "Yeah!"

**SUPER EVOLUTION _**

"Growlmon evolve…" the red dinosaur changed into a new form, one that was part dinosaur, part machine, with massive blades on both arms and metal grafted onto his face. He also had twin thrusters on his back as well as a metal chest plate that housed massive energy cannons.

"MegaloGrowlmon!"

* * *

Kevin was slightly confused. _I thought it was WarGrowlmon,_ the red-haired boy mused before slicing off the last tentacle.

"Alright, dude, it's time to get out of here." Just then, MegaloGrowlmon sliced his way into the Eldritch Abomination's chest, creating a large enough hole for the two to exit through.

"Alright!" the first tamer said, running forward after Kevin but being held back by something. "That's a little unusual."

Kevin walked behind the man. "No way, that looks like it's attached directly to the back of your head somehow."

The man had a bad feeling about the whole thing. "Use this opportunity to get out of here as quick as you can."

"Not without you, man." Kevin pulled out his pocket knife to slice through the cord. He did so and the man fell like a lead weight. "What?" was Kevin's response as he grabbed the man. _Still warm, we may have a chance. _He dragged him over to the hole that MegaloGrowlmon made and jumped out, falling before being caught by the cyborg Digimon who used the opportunity to his advantage.

"Atomic Blaster!" he yelled, unleashing a blast of pure energy from the cannons on his chest, obliterating Dagomon.

"Take me down man!" Kevin yelled, shaking. MegaloGrowlmon did so and let the red-head down onto the beach. Kevin immediately put the CPR skills from Boy Scout training to his advantage, pressing onto the man's chest and listening for a breath. He even tried mouth to mouth resuscitation, something that he didn't want to do on anyone but a girl.

No response. Kevin checked his pulse. The man was dead.

_No... _Kevin realized what he just did. He accidentally killed the man. Kevin had no idea what to do or how to feel. He just felt shock.

"No…"

MegaloGrowlmon degenerated back to Gigimon who moved over to Kevin. "Kevin, is everything going to be all right?"  
"I… killed him," was Kevin's response. He realized that the man needed a proper burial and he figured that it was his duty to give the man's personal belongings to his next of kin, provided he could find them. He grabbed the crest and put it around his neck and then proceeded to turn him over to grab his wallet.

"Samuel Guillermo Guevara Garcia. Born: August 18, 1969. Crap."

Unfortunately, the plans for burial had to be stalled as a mass of tentacles came together to start forming Dagomon anew. "Oh, man, we so gotta get out of here."

He realized there was nothing to do but to run and hope that the Cthulhu wannabe didn't reform completely before pursuing them.

He needed a destination, so he pulled out his digivice and looked to see where the Black and Bronze signal was. He immediately changed course to find them.

* * *

"Rinkageki!" Using his two swords, Gaiomon caused light to converge on Defendramon, who blocked it using his own sword.

_"Commandramon, let's use the gun,"_ Eddy suggested from within his data-sphere. Defendramon grabbed the massive gun from off his back and once Gaiomon's attack let up, he aimed it at his brother and fired.

"Tachyon Cannon!" The attack was a massive cannon blast that seeming hit Gaiomon before he even pulled the trigger and causing a massive shockwave that caused space-time to be distorted in between the two Digimon.

Gaiomon, however, was still standing, armor smoking from the attack. "You've got to do better than that, pipsqueak."

"Like I said, stop calling me that!"

"Not in this lifetime. Gaia Reactor!" All the energy in the atmosphere in the room seemed to be glowing. Defendramon knew just what was coming, so he crouched down.

Then the entire room exploded. Gaiomon was immune to his own attacks, but he was sure that Defendramon would be defeated and separated.

That wasn't the case. "Escudo de Absorción!" Defendramon shouted, revealing that the last energy attack didn't do any damage, but rather powered him up.

"Tachyon Cannon!" He unleashed the attack again, this time, it was even more powerful. Gaiomon continued to brace himself, but still received massive amounts of damage. Then Defendramon unleashed his final attack. "Gigastick Blade!" Gaiomon was still reeling from the previous attack and couldn't dodge it. The attack went straight into his chest, and slid across it, barely missing his digi-core. Massive amounts of data sprayed out of the wound as Defendramon finished his cut and let Gaiomon fall, limp.

The massive samurai split back into Derek and BlackAgumon, both passed out. Eddy's brother came to after a few seconds, struggling to get up.

"Give it up, bro, it's over," Eddy said from inside Defendramon.

"No way, pipsqueak! No way I'm giving up! Even if I have to find another form, I'm still better than you!"

"Man you're stubborn, like me. Come on, your Digimon isn't even conscious. You're almost completely out of it yourself."

"As long as I have a partner Digimon, I can get stronger than you."

* * *

Damien saw the opening. He didn't even have to evolve his Digimon to do it. "Now, Arkadimon!"

Arkadimon, his child-level partner, moved forward into the stadium and struck BlackAgumon in the back. Derek looked at him, knowing he was powerless to do anything. His Digimon was sucked into Arkadimon and absorbed permanently. BlackAgumon was dead and Derek knew what that meant: he was no longer a tamer.

Defendramon aimed his Tachyon Cannon at the enemy digimon but faltered, realizing that shooting him would mean shooting Derek as well.

"Well, well, well… If the old Emperor hasn't been dethroned." Damien smiled a twisted smile that showed how haughty he truly was as he walked in. "Oh, man, look at you. Pitiful."

"Leave him alone," Defendramon said.

"What? You're actually defending him? He's abused you for years. You can't say he doesn't deserve it. Heck, you might say that I did you a favor by removing his partner Digimon from the equation."

Defendramon split into Eddy and Commandramon, the later attempting to shoot Arkadimon, who deflected the bullets with ease and grace.

"Please! This is Arkadimon. He's a superior Digimon than that mutt."

Derek mumbled something.

"What, idiot?" Damien asked.

Derek looked straight at Damien and yelled out: "You killed him!"

"Please, that Digimon was a sadist and you were a tyrant. It's not like you two didn't deserve it." Derek ran at Damien, yelling, but the smaller guy dodged him and struck him in the back, knocking him down. "So, Eddy, ready to die?"

"What?" Eddy asked in confusion.

"I've already declared war on the Triple Alliance so they'll be destroying this place in a matter of minutes, killing everyone and everything in it."

PicoDevimon appeared behind the psycho. "So, are we gonna leave or what?"

"Yes." The two merged together into Hermmon and flew off, Arkadimon latched onto their back.

"Wait, he can't be serious!"

"He is," Commandramon said.

"So, it looks like this is the end, huh?"

"Hope not."

"You know, I hope it isn't either." Eddy paused for a few seconds, letting the gravity of their situation sink in a little bit. "You know, I know it isn't."

Eddy's brother struggled getting up. "Honestly, pipsqueak, do you think we could possibly get out of this."

"Stop calling me pipsqueak. Call me Eddy, bro!" Eddy shouted.

"Okay, I'll stop calling you pipsqueak. It's not like we have much longer to live, anyway."

"No way, man, don't give up!"

"Are you kidding me? There's no hope left, man. It's over."

"No way is it over! There's no way in heck that Wisemon sent me here to die. He said that coming here would cause me to go to the real world somehow and that I'd meet the first Tamer!"

"The first Tamer died while in the Dark Ocean, Eddy. That was thousands of years ago in digital world time, too."

"Then how do you explain this?" Eddy asked, holding out the black and green digivice.

Derek looked at it. "That thing… you showed me that before."

"Yeah! It's the first Tamer's digivice. I saw what he looked like, too. He looks like John Belushi without the curly hair."

Derek had a sudden realization, an old memory that surfaced…

_The man appeared out of nowhere, passed out in the middle of the living room floor with a giant egg and what looked like a black and green toy of sorts. They didn't make cell-phones like that back then, though, so he knew that wasn't what it was. Derek instantly recognized the man as his father, and woke him up. He was ecstatic to see him again, but at the same time he was angry at the man._

"_You left! Why did you leave?" the nine-year-old asked, tears coming into his eyes._

"_I…don't remember." He had no idea where he went or how he got back. He also didn't have a clue where he got the egg and toy. A short time later, Derek's mom came home. She got the same answers as Derek and proceeded to kick the man out. It was bad enough that she had a child in the hospital at the point of dying and that she had to deal with Trotsky, who was the culprit. He disappeared but still left threatening phone calls from time to time. His parents got divorced a few days later, partially thanks to the affair that their mom had._

_Derek remembered that they were on the verge of moving thanks to the witness protection program. That meant leaving Zack behind in that hospital._

"No…"

"What?"

"Dad was the first Tamer. He appeared with that digivice."

Eddy was dumbfounded by that answer. "Wait, you mean…"

"If you're right, we're going to meet dad in the real world. Then again, it's just wishful thinking on your part."

"We don't know that. Of course, that doesn't change how you're not sorry for anything."

"Sorrow. Man, I just want to curl up and die right now."

"We're not going to die."

"Yes we are and it's both our faults."

"You know, if you weren't such a psychopath and you didn't treat me like crap then we wouldn't be in this situation. Heck, if you didn't take over this stupid country, we wouldn't be here."

"Yeah," Commandramon agreed. "If you didn't take the throne, I would have. Heck, I would have ended up a better leader than you any day."

Derek chuckled at the though. "Man, BlackAgumon. You know, I feel sorry for him, impaled and loaded. Why is it that I'm the only one who get's his partner killed on a regular basis?"

"Maybe it's because you don't care enough."

Derek reflected on that statement and got up, walking over to Eddy. Commandramon had his gun locked on the bigger guy the entire time, prepared to shoot if he tried anything.

Eddy's brother stood in front of him and took off his sunglasses, tossing them to the ground where they disintegrated. Eddy saw first hand that the man had tears in his eyes, they were welling up and falling down his face.

"I can't let you see me like this," he said, turning around and falling to the ground. His clothes disintegrated, revealing what he was wearing when he first came to the digital world: a yellow shirt with the number 62 on it in blue, grey pants and old, worn out tennis shoes.

"Bro."

"It's all because of Trotsky. That moron!"

"Bro…" Eddy ran around to the front of the man.

"He… hit me, strangled me, gave me bruises all over my body. I hated him and yet at the same time I wanted to make him happy, so I tried the best I could. And then there was what he did to you, to Zack. I hate him. I hate myself for becoming him! There's no hope for me, man! No way!" Eddy didn't even notice the digivice vibrating because of an incoming call. "Me, you, Zack, Dad, Garrett, Mom, Scoot, James, Rolf, his chickens, your sock-headed friend, man what have I done? This country, this world, Eric, Trish, Millie, Chuck, I did it all because I thought it would make me popular, get me tons of friends, make people remember me. Heck, the only friends I had all those years, Ted, Roger, Eric, man, Eddy, when am I gonna learn? There's no way I can redeem myself for that, for what I did to them. There's no way. I'm just too far gone!"

Eddy did what he didn't expect to do to the selfish, abusive, idiotic, tyrannical, dictatorial moron that was standing in front of him. He hugged him.

Then the Gunslinger satellite launched its beams and the last thing the three remembered of the digital world was white light.

* * *

Zeppelinmon was a large, silver-colored Perfect-level airship Digimon with all of the state-of-the-art equipment and weapons. The group was able to procure it from Starmon with ease by telling him that they were using it to get to the imperial fortress so that they could defeat the Emperor and rescue their friend. Unfortunately, they arrived a day too late.

The fortress didn't exist anymore. In its place was a massive crater that ran deep.

"No, it can't be," Edd commented. "He's really gone."

Zack didn't say a word. He just stood there, staring. Ed, on the other hand, freely let the waterworks come out. "Say it ain't so! We're three no more Double D!"

Edd broke down right after the tall lump said those words. Zack just walked back to his individual quarters and let himself out until he fell asleep. His only two brothers, the ones that he waited so long to see were dead and there was nothing he could do about it.

Nazz walked up to Edd and put her arms around him, crying as well. "It's okay, Double D, it's okay to cry." Then her cries intensified.

May did the same for Ed, who surprisingly enough reciprocated.

Chaun didn't know what to feel. He felt awkward that he couldn't cry so he walked out of the bridge, Minomon in hand and headed to his quarters as well.

Most of the Digimon didn't feel as sad until they realized that most likely the two boys wouldn't be appearing in a Village of Beginnings anytime soon.

* * *

Daniel wasn't happy to bring the news to everyone. In fact, it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to do it. He looked at his father, who was essentially the team leader and then at Garrett, Rachelle, Ingrid, Robert and their partner Digimon, who had all recovered from the battle with Velgmon a few days earlier. Then he looked at the floor.

"What is it, man? Did they beat 'em?" Garrett asked.

"Please tell me they did," Robert told Daniel.

"The Emperor is dead…" Daniel said. The room was silenced. They didn't know how to react to that announcement.

"What happened, did he kill himself or something? Did somebody go mega?" Garrett asked.

"No, he was killed by the Gunslinger Satellite… along with Eddy and Commandramon." Everyone had a massive look of shock and disbelief on their faces.

"Crackers…" Ingrid said, breaking the silence.

"You can't be serious!" Garrett yelled. "There's no way someone as stubborn as Eddy would let that happen to him. No way…"

_Eddy was an idiot, but still, he didn't deserve this, _Rachelle thought, some water coming out of her eyes. _Zack… I'm sorry._

Brian knew that things were serious, that was the reason he preferred going and searching for Yggdrasil. He figured that it would be far less dangerous than going against the Emperor. Still, he wished he would have at least helped against him. He knew that since he had his spirits, he could become Löwemon or JägerLöwemon. Heck, just that day, they found out in a battle against a Mega Level that he could become Reichmon. That would have seriously turned the tide of the battle, however since they didn't know whether the spirits would actually work right, he stayed with his son's group.

Robert started to well up with tears himself and so did Garrett, the latter actually having to go back to the quarters he shared with the former to vent it out. Part of what he felt was anger, anger at Eddy for going into such an obvious trap. He vented that out by punching his mattress. Then he cried himself asleep. The two of them never got along, but he secretly wished they could.

_So much for becoming Chaosmon together…_

* * *

Jonny received the text from Zack. He was surprised that the other boy would give thought of doing that and he was surprised at the contents as well:_ Eddy is dead. We're going to meet on File Island._

He was shocked. As soon as he received the message, he shut the digivice up and then opened it, navigating the menus to look at the message again. He did so and closed the digivice.

"Hey, Jonny, is there something wrong?" the girl, Abigail asked.

Jonny simply nodded.

"He got a new message," Monodramon commented from next to him. The six of them, three human and three Digimon, were walking through the forest on File Island en route to where Wisemon told them to go in a previous conversation with him. Jonny didn't know the Digimon well but there was something he liked about him, something familiar.

"Thanks, buddy."

"What did it say?" Abigail asked, adjusting her black rimmed glasses. Behind her, her brother, who looked strangely like a skinnier more muscular version of Robert with shorter hair and barely visible glasses, was walking. He noted Jonny's facial expressions but didn't say anything.

"Someone I knew from Peach Creek is dead. I don't know how Zack knows him, but he sent me that message. Abby, I don't know how to feel." The boy formerly known as the Gourd broke down, crying. "Now they're coming to File Island. I don't know how many there are, but… I'm afraid."

Abby walked up in front of him and hugged him. "Don't worry Jonny, we're here to help you."

"Thank you. You might be one of the first true friends I've ever had. Well, other than Plank, anyway."

The girl's brother made a few hand signs to the girl. She rolled her eyes. [Jesse, I'm not in love with him. There's nothing going on between us,] she signed back.

"What was he talking about?" Monodramon asked.

"Nothing." Abby rolled her eyes.

* * *

Soon after, they reached the location: a mansion that would have reminded the three of them a little too much of the one Devimon used in an episode of Digimon Adventure. It had the same basic look: a two winged building with numerous stories. Of course, since they had never seen the show, they didn't think anything of it. Then a winged, dog-like Digimon opened the front doors.

"Good to see you've made it," Anubimon said.

"Where's Wisemon?" Jonny asked.

"He's just inside. Come with me." They followed Anubimon into the dining hall of the building. "The others haven't arrived yet since both groups are a few days journey from here by airship, but I figured I'd get you to come here."

"So, it's the same Eddy that I knew?" Jonny asked.

Anubimon nodded. "Yes. He was locked in battle with his brother in the end."

"And you're Wisemon's boss?"

Anubimon nodded. "Just about. We've known each other forever. I encountered him one time and he took me through the worlds. That was nearly 20,000 years ago for me and fifteen for him, since he resided in this reality's human world for that time. He's a good person and he thinks highly of you. From what I hear, you two were pretty good friends there."

"Actually, I never met him before coming here."

"Chances are he was using a disguise."

Jonny couldn't figure it out at first, but as soon as he got to the dining hall, he realized who he was when Wisemon started speaking. _I knew he sounded familiar._

"Hello, Jonny, I am glad to see you here again," Wisemon said.

"Plank?"

Wisemon nodded. "The one and only. I apologize for my deception but I could not interact with the kids directly. I figured that by using the guise of Plank, I would be able to interact with you kids without drawing too much attention."

"No way, buddy!" Jonny exclaimed and ran up to Wisemon, hugging him.

"Looks like you've got competition," Abby joked to Monodramon who had a frightened look on his face.

"I hope you're not serious!" the Digimon replied.

* * *

A couple of days later, the other teams met. They were all surprised to see Jonny again and some ill will was still felt toward him. "Don't worry, guys, he's gotten better," Garrett said.

"Gee, I hope so, dude, 'cause he was a real jerk the last time we met him," Nazz commented.

"I'm serious, man."

* * *

Robert noticed the two people in the room other than Jonny that he hadn't met. He had a good idea of who they were, though they didn't have any idea about him themselves. He figured he would be best off starting by talking to the boy, who kept himself separated from the others, so he walked up to him and held out his hand to shake it.

"Hi, I'm Robert," he said. The boy didn't respond at first, so Robert assumed there was something wrong. Then he spoke.

"Jesse, Jesse Symanski."

"I kind of figured. I heard about you. You're deaf, right?"

Jesse shook his head. "Used to be. Came here and it was pretty hard to get used to everything, all those sounds. So, how do you know about me?"

"Uh, just read up on you, that's all. I did some research on my family and that's where I found out about you."

"We're related?" Robert nodded uneasily. Jesse looked away. "Here I thought I had all my cousins accounted for."

"We're not cousins."

Jesse looked at him for a second. He was about to inquire further when Abby walked up to them and started signing to her brother and he signed back. "Sorry if you weren't able to talk to my brother here. He's deaf," she told Robert.

"He seemed to talk to me just fine."

"It's kind of funny how similar you guys are."

Jesse didn't feel like speaking to his sister in English. Thankfully, Edd called everyone. "Can I get your attention, please?"

They all looked at him. It wasn't going to be easy for Edd to give the speech he was about to give but he was going to do it. "As you all know, three days ago, we all lost a beloved friend, brother and cousin."

_Eddy's brother's here? I don't see him anywhere,_ Jonny thought with a tinge of excitement.

"As many of you know, Eddy had an older brother named Derek whom we encountered last year at Mondo-A-Go-Go. He was quite the hostile person to say the least, go so far as to beat him senseless for no reason. Right now, they are both dead, they and their partner Digimon." Edd was trying to hold back tears while he spoke his friend's life story, or as much as he knew of it. "He was born on February 22, 1998 as…"

The entire group listened intently, even Abigail and Jesse, the girl signing for her brother even though he didn't need it and wasn't paying attention to her signing. Robert didn't know why he didn't just let the girl know that he could hear. Jonny just wished he could say goodbye or at least talk to the boy again. It was the same for everybody.

"… He was survived by a twin brother, Clayton Zacarías, a younger half-sister, Jessica Dolores, his Mother and Step-father, Sharon and Doug, his Father and Step-Mother, Sam and Emily, and numerous cousins including Garrett."

* * *

"Okay, so Abby has no idea you can hear?" Robert asked Jesse, who nodded. "Why don't you just tell her?"

"Because I'm afraid. I'm far more comfortable talking through signs."

Robert nodded. "I understand. However, by being in this world, you're already out of your comfort zone. Believe me, I know. I didn't want to come back here when I did, but I did. And now I'm here."

"So, how are we related?"

"Prepare to be taken out of your comfort zone some more."

After a brief pause, Jesse said: "Move on."

"I'm your half-brother." Jesse looked at Robert in shock but then regained his composure.

"Why am I not surprised?"

"I know you may hate me for it…"

"I don't hate you. In fact, I'm happy to meet you."

"How'd you know it was our father?"

"I just knew. He would always drop me off someplace whenever I went on a trip with him alone. Chances were there was a woman. Besides, I know my mother too well."

"You're pretty darn smart you know?"

Jesse smiled. "I try to be."

"So, what do you say you come with me? David's still out there and he hates my guts. Besides it'll give you a little more room."

"I'll have to ask my sister about it."

"Don't. Just come with me. Tell her that you want to and that you'll be fine without her. It'll make it easier for you to converse in English. As it is, you're already doing a really good job."

"I already knew how to speak and listen when I first came here. It was automatic for some reason."

"Crazy. I've heard of similar things happening to Eddy and Double D when they got their digivices."

"Okay, I'll go." After a few seconds, Jesse said something else: "Tell me what Eddy was like."

* * *

Zack hung around the outskirts of the room, preferring not to talk to anyone. Because of his brother's death, everyone left him alone. After a few minutes of alone time, Ed came up and talked to him with May by his side. The conversation didn't go particularly well since Zack couldn't think of anything to talk to him about and he didn't really want to talk about his brother.

After that, Ed and May continued talking to each other while Zack snuck off. While doing that, he accidentally bumped into Rachelle and Renamon. "Hey, Zack, I'm sorry." Zack felt the girl hug him. He wasn't ready for a relationship.

Still, it felt good. They stayed that way for a few seconds. During that time, he was tempted to go with Daniel's group, yet he stopped himself.

* * *

"So, how are you doing?" Edd asked Jonny who was standing outside on a balcony next to Wisemon and Monodramon.

"Alright I guess. If you can't forgive me, I understand."

"I think I forgave you a long time ago," Edd said, smiling slightly. "Everyone was quite worried about you. I guess that was when I forgave you. Besides, it looks like you've changed. You're no longer the Gourd even though you're still wearing part of his outfit."

Jonny chuckled a bit. "Thank you. By the way, this is Plank," he said, referring Edd to Wisemon. Edd's tone turned serious.

"You sent Eddy to his demise."

Wisemon didn't comment and Jonny looked at Edd in shock.

"How dare you show up here!"

Wisemon made his book materialize and then walked on top of it. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll leave."

"It would. Don't come back. You've done enough messing around in everyone's lives."

Wisemon sunk into the book which then spun and disappeared. It was then when Edd realized the effect of what he said on Jonny, who just walked off, Monodramon behind him. He walked back into the mansion, but not before walking past Anubimon who walked over to the balcony. Edd didn't notice him, though.

"What did I just do?" he asked himself aloud.

"Your objections were justified, Double D," Kudamon commented from his partner's shoulder. "A life is nothing to take for granted. Especially a human life."

"He's right," Anubimon said.

Edd just looked at the jackal-headed Digimon. "And you're his superior. What did you do to prevent him from taking a foolish course? He made Eddy think that he was off to the real world for crying out loud!"

Anubimon looked at Edd in the eye and disappeared.

* * *

Anubimon met with Wisemon and Kuzuhamon in their usual meeting place in the sanctuary where they worked.

"You know you just about destroyed my friendship with Jonny," Wisemon said.

"I'm sorry for that. However, remember the plan."

Kuzuhamon wasn't happy. "You killed two humans."

* * *

"No. That was all a setup to hopefully accelerate the team's evolution to the mega level. Eventually, they'll have to deal with the five as well as the rest of Symanski's forces. Eddy and Derek are both still alive. I have plans for them."

A/N: Basically, this chapter is setup for the next fic that still manages to solve something. Originally I was going to have Anubimon tell Edd that Eddy was alive but I realized that would just spark a fight between the two. Anubimon is nothing that he seems to be. If you can guess who he is (though you'd have to use more than just this fic), I'll give you a cookie (not really).

The next chapter is Eddy and his brother in the real world. If you think his repentance in this chapter was too easy, it was. He's still the screwed up jerk you know, though he's starting to change after the death of his partner a little. The next chapter also ties up a storyline introduced in the second arc and reveals the identity of the one who gets the bronze digivice. Shoutmon has to cross the Dark Ocean for a reason to get to him.


	33. Epilogue: Road to Redemption

Chapter 33: Epilogue: Road to Redemption

* * *

Disclaimer: For the last time, I don't own Ed, Edd n Eddy.

* * *

**Denver, Colorado – The previous Saturday**

It was a long ride on his motorcycle, but he made it to the apartment complex that he was going to be spending the night in. He parked his bike, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and walked up to the door with his helmet still on. He knocked at the door, hoping to play a joke on the guy by having his helmet on, but it didn't happen.

There didn't seem to be anyone home. He checked his phone and saw that he received a message from his friend saying that he had been called to work that day, that the key was underneath the mat, and that he should just make himself at home. It helped a little bit that his friend's roommate was out of town for the weekend visiting his folks across the state.

The motorcyclist, unbeknownst to him, is the person that Anubimon planned on being a new tamer. Of course, that doesn't matter at the moment. The guy made his way into the apartment and found it empty except for the sparse furniture. Neither the guy's friend or his roommate spent a whole lot of time in front of the TV, which was just an old one anyway, so they didn't really need to put anything in the living room other than a couch anyway. He plopped his helmet and his backpack on the couch, and then his whole body. It was a long ride and he had a few things to think about. He was thinking about moving to the city he was in: the Denver metropolitan area, but he had to find a job first.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to hang out here for awhile. He still had a job where he lived and just came for the weekend. It paid well, but he still wanted out of the house. Heck, he was 22, going on 23.

He pulled out the little pendant he had around his neck, a diamond shaped tag with an orange crest with a sun on it. He remembered watching Digimon as a kid and thought it was funny that he found something like the Crest of Courage. Of course, he had no clue as to its significance in his life or what he was about to do.

Of course, life throws curveballs at you. What do you expect?

A few hours later, he figured he had to do something, so he got up. He looked around his friend's room, which was cluttered to say the least. His friend just slept on a full-sized mattress with sheets on it and had things such as books piled in strange places as well as a computer on the ground. Then again, that was somewhat expected since his friend had just moved out of the house. Come to find out, the friend was a mere five days older than him.

After looking through his friend's books and pulling out an interestingly titled one in Spanish titled _El Otoño del Patriarca_, The Autumn of the Patriarch, a novel about a fictitious Caribbean dictator. The motorcyclist read it for a few seconds and then left the house to go get something to eat. He settled on eating at the Panda Express off Kipling north of I-70, ordering orange chicken, sweat and sour pork, and lots of chow mein noodles. He ate while reading the book he got from his friend's room, amazed at how difficult it was. He knew his friend wasn't a native Spanish speaker so how could he read such a book. Half the vocabulary seemed to go over the motorcyclist's head as he read it, himself.

As he was leaving, he noticed a rather strange sight: there was a chubby, brown-haired boy at a corner holding a sign that said: _need money for food._ The motorcyclist thought it was strange, since the boy looked to have his younger brothers' age. In addition, he noticed a black obelisk that he swore wasn't there when he passed by earlier.

* * *

**Peach Creek – Present**

Derek and Eddy found themselves in the forest by his house. Neither of them had any idea how they got there, though Eddy kind of figured Wisemon had something to do it. As soon as they got there, they immediately backed off from one another and looked around.

"Well, what do you know, pipsqueak. We're back in the real world," Derek commented somewhat uneasily as Eddy glared at him.

"Hey, what did you say about calling me pipsqueak?"

"That was when we were about to die."

"Commandramon?"

"Yeah, Eddy?" Commandramon asked, walking up behind Eddy.

"If my brother ever calls me pipsqueak again, be sure to give him a massive wedgie."

"Can't I just shoot him?"

"No."

"Come on, pipsqeak, a wedgie?" Commandramon made himself disappear. "Man, that's like the oldest trick the book." Derek turned around and tried to kick Commandramon where he figured the reptile would be, but simply kicked into air he groaned in pain from the feeling of his red plaid boxers getting pulled up from behind him.

Commandramon made himself visible again, standing next to Eddy. "There, you happy now?"

"Yeah, I figured it's better than shooting him." Eddy looked around. "Alright, I guess we should find this first Tamer guy before anything else so that we can get back to the digital world before everybody gets really old. Ready?"

"Yeah!"

Derek objected while trying to stick his underwear back into the back of his pants and down so that it didn't feel so uncomfortable. "Okay, Eddy, where do you think you're gonna look? Heck, last time I checked, dad lived in Colorado!"

Eddy looked at his brother. "You've got a point. By the way, you're not coming with me."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I could care less about what you think. In case you haven't noticed, my partner's dead and my empire's probably in shambles."

"Yeah, you shouldn't have become Emperor anyway. Heck, you did such a crappy job at it that I was surprised you didn't get assassinated or something. Oh, and another thing, while you seemed sympathetic when you thought we were about to die, now you're being a massive scumbag again."

Derek took in a deep breath. "Here's the thing, Eddy, I just lost my partner, my home and my future."

"And why should I care about that? You tortured me for years. Heck, I don't know what happened with that Trotsky guy or whatever, but that doesn't excuse anything you did. If you really feel sorry for all that and for losing your partner, stop being such a jerk!"

Derek was shut up. He knew Eddy was right, he just didn't want to admit it. Heck, he even had an unnerving desire to play uncle with the boy, but he knew that Commandramon was going to get in the way.

Well, that was until Derek could get a new partner. Maybe. He was starting to really miss BlackAgumon and shed a tear as he watched Eddy walking away. _What have I been doing all these years? _he asked himself.

He realized that he was going to have to make a change if he was to get back what he lost. That was a big if. He ran after Eddy.

Soon, the boy reached his house and unlocked the front door. He looked behind and saw his brother. "What did I say about you coming along?"

"Honestly, I don't care, now let's just go inside, Eddy." Eddy walked in and, after his brother walked past him, shut the front door and locked it. He wouldn't have been surprised if some of those prudes from Somnus decided to go after them.

Then he felt a vibration in his pocket and pulled out the black and green digivice. He also pulled something else out. "Oh crap!"

"What is it, Eddy?" Commandramon asked. Derek was in the kitchen now, raiding the fridge.

Eddy held up the rectangular device. "I forgot to give Zack back his iPod!"

Commandramon looked at him with a confused look on his face. "Man, after all that?"

Eddy opened up the black and green digivice and saw a message on the screen. _"Go upstairs to your brother's room,"_ it said.

Eddy knew it was probably Wisemon giving him orders. He walked upstairs with Commandramon close behind.

* * *

Derek was busy pouring a bowl of Chunky Puffs when he heard the bell ring and then the door opening. He knew it couldn't have been his mother and stepfather, so he walked over to the doorway while hiding himself from the figures that entered into the house.

"But that's breaking and entering," Derek heard one of the figures say.

"So? We need to see who this guy is so we know he's not with the Emperor. For all we know, it's Zack."

The first figure, the biggest of the group, complied and followed the others into the house. It was completely dark except for a light on in the kitchen and upstairs. One of the figures looked at what was most likely a digivice. "He's not in the kitchen."

"Then upstairs," the biggest figure said. The second tallest started walking up the stairs as quietly as possible followed by the girl with the digivice and the largest along with their partner Digimon.

None of them noticed Derek walking out of the kitchen. He glanced at the girl and recognized her. _Ah, the missing Tamer. This could get interesting. What did Zack call her again? Oh yeah, Beatriz Pinzón. Then again, the name's probably bogus like all the other ones. Man, he called Chaun Freddy Stewart and Robert Armando Mendoza. Then there's that one chick who he called Patricia Fernandez. If there's a theme going on here, I'm not seeing it._

Derek followed the others from a distance. _Maybe one of them has an extra Digimon I could use. Yeah right…_Derek smiled evilly.

* * *

Eddy opened up his brother's room and had to look for something. The digivice told him to go here and he didn't know why, but he knew it was part of the reason he was sent back to this world.

Then he spotted it: a green spotted digi-egg. _What the heck is that doing here?_ he asked himself. As he walked toward it, though, the door opened up. He thought it was his brother but he was absolutely wrong. He looked into the eyes of the dark-haired girl who walked into the room, eyes filled with surprise. "Zack?"

He instantly knew who she was and she was one of the last people on earth that he actually wanted to meet. Soon, Rolf walked in along with a tall, muscular man who Eddy instantly recognized as the first Tamer himself.

Suddenly the egg in the closet started to hatch. "Oh, man, you've gotta be kidding me," Eddy said.

"Oh, once-short Ed-boy," Rolf commented.

"Yeah, Rolf, you're taller than me, so can you help me get this thing. Actually, no, you…" Eddy pointed to Sam. "Okay, I'm going to make this quick: that's your partner Digimon in there."

"Wait, so you're not Zack?" Jessica asked.

"He certainly doesn't smell like him," Tailmon commented. Eddy simply rolled his eyes. Sam was in a state of sheer shock.

He wasn't expecting this moment.

"Come on, Dad, it's waiting for you," Eddy held out the black and green digivice, and the man took it.

"There has got to be some sort of mistake."

"No, you're the first Tamer and I was sent to find you. Somehow I get the feeling this was set up."

Commandramon then charged into the room. He was across the hall using the restroom. "What… who are these people, Eddy?" Sam walked across the room and watched as the small, green, ball-shaped Digimon with wings and a pair of red horns plopped into his arms and started snuggling him.

Jessica had absolutely no idea what was happening. _My dad, a digidestined? That makes absolutely no sense!_

Then there was the identity of the yellow-shirt wearing boy that had such as strong resemblance to Zack and clearly identified her father as his own. "Who are you?"

Eddy was surprised by the question. "Uh, I'm Zack's identical twin brother. Commandramon here is my partner."

"No you're not!"

Sam turned to her. "Believe it or not, he's telling the truth. Well, Eddy, we've got a lot to catch up on."

"You're kidding me!" Jessica quickly stormed out of the room and past Rolf, Betamon and Commandramon. She even walked past another figure without even looking at him. She didn't even care to.

"Man, what's that chick's problem," Eddy's brother asked Rolf, who looked at him in shock.

"Eddy, the Emperor has come to take us alive!" Rolf shouted. "Betamon, prepare for a battle to the death!"

"Uh, Rolf, he doesn't have a partner Digimon anymore," Eddy told him.

"What! You defeated the evil emperor's partner Digimon? Why then is he here? And how come it took only a couple hours, Ed-boy?"

Sam looked down at the Digimon in his hands, identified as Petitmon, and then at Eddy as he explained the incredibly confusing story of his trip to the digital world to the foreign-born boy.

* * *

Derek walked downstairs and noticed the girl sitting on the back patio with her Digimon. _So, this is Beatriz Pinzón. I wonder what Eddy did that made her so upset. _He opened the screen door and walked out, sitting next to the girl. She looked at him and then back at the sky.

"Leave me alone," she told him.

"Now why should I do that?"

"I'll tell my dad a stranger's bugging me."

"Yeah. Doubt he's actually stronger than me."

"I have Tailmon too. She can slice you up pretty nastily."

"Of course. So, girl, what's your life story?"

"Like I'm telling you, creep."

"Hey, I'm just trying to cheer you up a little, girl. By the way, I'm royalty."

"Sure, and I'm the queen of Siam."

"I'm the Digimon Emperor." That was when the girl looked Derek straight in the eye. "That caught your attention, didn't it? The name's Derek, by the way."

"Jessica."

"Here I was thinking that your name was Beatriz Pinzón. That was what Zack said your name was. You know him, right?"

"Yeah. I see he didn't give you any reliable information after you kidnapped him."

"Oh, he went willingly. Heck, it all started with a devolution and me going, 'Zack, I am your brother,' after cutting off his hand of course. I was making up that last one." Jessica hoped he was kidding.

* * *

Sam watched on as his oldest and youngest children talked outside. He was talking with Eddy about his life. Some of the things he told him about Derek were pretty hard to believe considering what the kid used to be like.

"So, now what?"

"Beats me. I only got instructions up to this point." Jessica then walked in, shutting the sliding door behind her.

"I can't believe that idiot out there is also my brother! Dad, how many kids did you have in that previous marriage?"

"Just the three. I was going to tell you eventually."

"That's what they all say." She rolled her eyes and almost walked out of the room when Eddy asked her something.

"You didn't tell him that you were his sister, right?" Eddy asked.

"No. That guy really gives me the creeps." She walked off with Tailmon just behind her.

"Man, she's taking it hard," Eddy said.

"That's kind of to be expected. I'm surprised you're doing so well yourself."

"Eh, I already found out about her before I had any idea that Zack and Clayton were actually the same person. Then when I found out, I just about had a nervous breakdown. Got to know Zack a little bit, too. Finding out about Zack in the first place was kind of random, though. I had just gotten a hold of his iPod after stealing it from this psycho named Lee. I think I already told you about her."

Sam nodded. "So, where are all your friends?"

"Still in the digital world. I'm going back, though, so don't worry. We'll all get out of this."

"Yeah… Life's crazy. I never thought I'd be doing anything like this."

"Of course not. So, what was it like being in the digital world back then?"

Sam looked at the sleeping Petitmon on his lap. "To be honest, I don't remember any of it. I have this weird three-month gap in memories that I can't account for."

"Crazy." Eddy felt he was handling the night better than expected.

Sam glanced at Derek. "I think I'm going to go talk to him now."

"Good luck with that. I don't really want him coming with us."

"I understand." Sam got up and walked out of the house.

"Rolf would like to know how the others are," Rolf said.

"They were doing pretty good last time I saw them, well, except for being on the verge of taking on a Mega with a bunch of Perfects."

"Well,Rolf is amazed that they all got to that stage."

"Yeah, so am I. Heck, we got there pretty darn quick. By the way, it's good to see you again, Rolf."

"Likewise. I trust I will be going with you on your next trip to the digital world."

"Hey, I'll need all the help I can get, so, sure, why not."

* * *

"So, how are you feeling, Derek?" Sam asked, sitting down next to the guy.

"Crappy. My partner's dead, my brother's stronger than me thanks to his Digimon, and now you're here."

"I understand there was a lot of resentment for what happened fourteen years ago."

"I thought you left, dad, and got replaced by a complete douche in the process. I blamed you for everything that happened all those years ago. I guess I still do."

"Still, it doesn't excuse the things you did to Eddy."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Did you apologize to Eddy?"

"Nope, not really."

"That's a start."

"Yeah, I might do that."

"And one more thing: you're coming with us, but at the same time, you're going to be on strict watch."

"Figures. You see, that was one of the reason why I never bothered coming home to you. You impose too many rules."

"You call rules against bullying and physical abuse too many? How much of a moral code do you still have left?"

"Who cares?"

"I do. Heck, if you ever expect another partner, you're going to have to become a better person."

"Okay…" Derek didn't like what was going on. Heck, he just wanted to hop on his motorcycle and ride away, never to come back.

He looked forward and caught sight of a black obelisk. He realized that the Dark Ocean has started encroaching on the real world. "Just a second," he said, getting up and going inside. He past Eddy and Rolf who were talking and into the living room, where he remembered that girl Jessica going in. She wasn't there, though.

"Where could she be?" He turned to Eddy. "Hey, Pipsque… I mean Eddy," he corrected himself out of fear of another wedgie from Commandramon or worse, "where'd that chick that was in here go?"

Eddy shrugged and then got up. They all searched the house: she was gone.

Sam was in a massive state of panic: what if she decided to just run away, all because she didn't know about Eddy or Derek. Where did she go? Of course, since she didn't know the area, she couldn't have gone far. Still, she had her Digimon with her and she could at least armor digivolve it, perhaps more.

However, Sam was able to keep his emotions from going outward somewhat in front of Derek.

"Great, I promised the girl's mom I would bring her home," Sam said, trying to hide his panic to a certain degree and at the same time trying to prevent Derek from catching on. He did promise the girl's mom, his wife, that he would bring her home so he wasn't lying. Then there's the question of what Derek would do if he found out.

"The Dark Tower's still standing so I don't think she went off to destroy it," Derek commented.

At that moment, the garage door started to open. Eddy didn't know what to do about his dad or brother. His brother decided to just walk upstairs to his room and shut it, but his father just stood there. "So, you're just going to stand here and do nothing? What if my mom sees you?"

"It's been fourteen years. I guess you can just say that we accidentally met each other." Rolf was still in the room as well, sitting down on the couch with Betamon in his lap. "Eddy, she'll need to know that you know."

Eddy took a deep breath. "I told her this morning that I knew about Zack. She didn't believe me that he was alive, though."

"He was on the verge of death when she left. The only reason he's alive today is, I think, because of the digivice that appeared in his arms." Finally, the door opened. However, Eddy's mom wasn't who entered. Instead, his stepdad came in. He was as tall as his real dad and had short curly brown hair and blue eyes, traits that Eddy didn't have. Still, there was at least some resemblance there that made passerby think that they could possibly be related.

His reaction to Sam was unexpected. "Uh, hi," was his simple response, a cautious tone in his voice. "Do you know this guy, Eddy?"

"Yeah, he's… a friend of mine."

"Actually, I'm his father," Sam corrected, not knowing what to expect.

"Oh. Eddy, your mother's still at Somnus. I guess I should go pick her up now that you're here. How long did you know about me not…"

"About two years. I convinced myself that I was hallucinating, though."

"So, what did you hear about me?" Sam asked.

"Not a whole lot, just that my wife wasn't happy married to you and that she screwed up big time because of it. She didn't really go into anything about you other than that and that you guys got married too young."

Eddy's digivice vibrated. There was a message on the screen from Anubimon of all people: _You have five minutes to pack up before leaving. You will need 'Fort Peach Creek.' You can store it in your digivice thanks to the D-Plus's new item storage. Jessica was taken by the Dark Ocean. Derek will be going with you. _

* * *

**Denver, Colorado – The Previous Saturday**

The motorcyclist was still reading the book when his friend came in through the front door. He had dark blond hair underneath a white cap which he wore forward and blue eyes. He was wearing a red dress shirt and black slacks. It was already late when he got there.

"Sorry about the day, it was an emergency. How's it going?"

"Good. I placed about seven job applications around town. Not sure if I'll get any calls, but it's worth the try."

"Yeah, it is. So, you want to see something really weird?" he asked.

"Sure, go ahead."

Derek's friend pulled out a laptop, opened it and brought it out of hibernation. "This is something I found out about just a little bit ago." He clicked on a few icons and ended up in a folder with 32 video files labeled 'Episode 1' up to 'Episode 32'. The title of the folder was 'Digimon Scammers.'

"Digimon, eh, talk about old school."

"Yeah, remember when it first came on when we were ten and everyone thought it was a Pokémon knockoff? This is utterly insane, though."

"I think my little brother's been watching that show lately. Don't know anything about it other than that it was a show on the internet."

"Yeah? What you're about to see will blow your mind."

"Try me." The friend took off the baseball cap and started playing one of the videos.

"You remember Ed, Edd n Eddy?"

"Vaguely."

"This is supposedly a sequel to that that has Eddy getting another brother, a growth spurt and his canon brother comes back."

"Okay…"

The episode chosen was Episode 8 and was fast forwarded to the part with Eddy meeting his brother. The art style on the show looked somewhat like a realistically drawn cartoon like Young Justice or something.

_Eddy looked at his digivice. Right behind them was a red and black signal. "Derek." He looked behind him to find his brother, about ten yards away with a BlackAgumon by his side.  
"Oh, man, this is so lame. How could you manage to defeat all three of my best fighters?" he asked. "You're all just a bunch of little runts from the cul-de-sac." He broke out in mocking laughter for a few seconds and then turned serious again. "Oh, my, hasn't the little pipsqueak grown." Everyone's face turned serious as they looked upon the older sibling with anger. _

"_What do you want, bro?" Eddy asked._

"They named Eddy's brother Derek?" the motorcyclist asked.

"Familiar?"

"No kidding. Man, they got my personality all wrong and everything," Derek commented. He had shorter hair than his other self, far shorter actually, though some of it may have been from wearing a helmet. He also didn't have any facial hair to speak of, either.

"So, what do you think?"

"Good question. So, are we going to go to Broc's or what?"

"He's coming here, actually. One of the villains on the show actually matched the profile of a Canadian scientist that disappeared 14 years ago named Piotr Symanski. I checked around forums for the show and apparently his daughter noted the similarity. She also criticized it for portraying her father and older brother as enemies with very little moral code."

"Anything else?"

"Not much other than the fanfiction, most of which is quite bad. Apparently they all like Symanski's evil son so much that half the fanfics are Mary Sues paired off with him or yaoi involving him."

"Sound's like someone's got leather pants."

"Both literally and figuratively, yeah."

Derek sat back. "So, what now?"

"Well, I decided to try out a personal investigation of the show. So far, nothing. The IP address doesn't lead me anywhere, either. I know, I'm abusing Somnus' computers for that, but it's not like I can do much else."

"What are you doing at Somnus, anyway?"

"That's classified, so you didn't hear it from me. Apparently there have been things coming from another dimension, kidnapping people and constructing these Dark Obelisks."

"Sound's like something out of Digimon."

"The rare sightings seemed like something out of H.P. Lovecraft. Then again, there is the thirteenth episode of the second season."

"There's a connection, I know it."

"That's what I think. Of course, my superiors won't believe me."

"Man, the way that character treats his little brother… makes me sick. I couldn't bring myself to do something like that."

The doorbell rang.

* * *

Continued in Digimon Scammers: Ragnarök.

* * *

A/N: Well, there you have it. After about a week, I'm going to put this in the crossovers section. I already wrote the first chapter of Ragnarök, strangely enough.

Gotta say, this is the first time I've written a story that's gone this far. Not to mention, it was quite interesting messing with the various tropes associate with it while examining and working around my weaknesses in writing. Of course, there are more than a few things that I wish I either didn't do or did better (eg. Eddy's other brother). Have to say, it was fun messing with such a large group of characters, even if it got overbearing at times. Cast herding does wonders, I think.

It's kind of funny how much different it ended up from what I originally struck out to do. Heck, the first (unpublished) pilot I wrote for this involved things such as the kids going to the digital world Adventure style (and it turning out completely different from adventure). There were also a bunch of other things such as the kids getting different partners (Eddy got Wormmon and Ed got Commandramon and Nazz got Lalamon. Jimmy and Sarah were both there from the beginning with partners (Sarah got a Biyomon for some reason). If you feel like seeing it, PM me). I ended up deciding not to work with that one since I wanted to experiment with OCs a bit more (though, from what I remembered planning for that, a bunch of the same ones from this fic would have showed up later anyway).

So, after getting severe writer's block from that one, I basically set up a Digimon Tamers-like beginning, though its answer to Hypnos didn't come up until later. The Eddy's other brother storyline came in too, mainly being a plot from "The End of the Ed as we Know It" that came over. Then everything got silly.

Now we have the alternate reality. It was something I've been wanting to mess with for awhile. Personally, it would have been interesting if there was an actual Digimon series where they went to other realities. Of course, that's probably not going to happen (fanfics do it a lot, anyway). So, what are you going to see next? Well, a character from Tamers of Vegas has already made an appearance (I plan on working with that story a bit more, probably renaming it). The alternate reality also gets explored a bit by one of the teams.


End file.
